No Knead to Fuss: One Pot of Bread

All right, I will admit that I’m stretching the definition of “one pot meal” a bit here. When someone says a one pot meal, they mean an actual meal pulled together into a pot, typically a soup or stew full of goodies. And while I did have some ideas for the typical one pot meal, my family was a bit full up on soup this week and I wasn’t going to press my luck trying out a new soup recipe.
Instead, I opted to try out no knead bread, a baking application which has been on my mind since I read about it in The New York Times (online). It also involves an enameled cast iron pot, which if one uses as the mixing bowl as well, could justify my claim that this is indeed a one pot meal. Plus a towel and table. Details. And whether some slices of delicious bread and butter constitutes a meal.

Week 10–Book Inspired: Ja-Pan #16! Mt. Fuji Like Bread AKA Yakitate!! Ja-Pan’s Take on Naan!

Thanks for coming to check out the blog again. Something a bit different this time. This time the challenge on Reddit was to make a dish that was movie or book inspired.

So I went and made something. So what the hell is it some of you may be asking? I might actually be cheating here since rather than a novel kind of book it’s from the manga/anime Yakitate!! Ja-Pan, which follows the story of some baker in the pursuit of bread, with the focus being on protagonist Azuma Kazuma, both something of a bumpkin and baking genius who has come up with several classic bread recipes out of his own head, and having no idea of the original recipe, refers to them as Ja-pan, a pun on being Japanese and pan, or bread.

So what the hell is this you thing I have presented here you might ask? Why it is Ja-pan #16 obviously!

Ciabatta Believe It! Roasted Garlic and Herb Ciabatta

Are there terrible puns I am unwilling to make? No. Especially if they are based on food. I will apologize for them though, so, I’m sorry. Kind of.

Now that apologies are out of the way, I will put the most awesome foreword I could ever put on this blog (for now.) This bread is Michael Ruhlman approved! He retweeted the picture I put on twitter, saying “nice crumb!” Super awesome feeling to have someone I respect that much compliment something I did learning from his book!

So with that in mind, I promised I would post about the ciabatta bread in my last post, and so here we go.

I opted to take some of his suggestions for making a roasted garlic and rosemary bread to heart, and substituted dried oregano for fresh rosemary.

As always, the use of Michael’s guidelines in Ratio greatly demystified the process of baking.

Kitchenaid cookbook, how does it work?

One of my favorite things to have with a bit of good ham or cheese is a loaf of French Bread, cut roughly with a perhaps inadequately long knife or torn roughly while sitting on a sandy river bed. Or even a can of spam if you so desire, but maybe that's just me. At any rate, attempts at producing such a bread on my own has resulted in varying degrees of success. Some of the more authentic recipes require creating a poolish of flour and water to sit over night, and metal pans of hot water in the oven. So when I saw the  KitchenAid cookbook's rendition involving no such steps, I was curious how it would turn out.

First 4.5 tbsp of yeast is dissolved in 2.5 cups of warm water in the mixer bowl.

1 tbsp of salt and 1 tbsp of butter is added to 7 cups of flour. 

The lot of which is put into the mixer and mixed for about a minute.

Until well blended.

After that, knead it on low for 2 minutes longer.

Ah, nothing quite as wonderfully marshmallow-y feeling as well kneaded bread.

After an hour of rising it should have doubled in bulk, and now for the fun part.

Punch it in the middle to release some of the gas.

Separate into two hunks.

And roll it into a sheet.

Ok, roll it into a slightly neater sheet.

Each sheet is rolled up into a loaf.

And set on a baking sheet which has been dusted with a healthy amount of corn meal to prevent sticking. Next time I'd consider using some parchment paper as well.

This is covered and allowed to rise to bulk up nicely for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450 somewhere in the middle of the raising, and then bake for 25 minutes. Oven shots are never that lovely.

Remove and give it a nice brush with some lightly beaten egg white.

5 minutes more in the oven, and you're done!

While I've made better French breads, I haven't had such a good taste to effort ratio as this. Definitely a nice few hours work rather than the production line that makes you wonder if it would be easier to go to the local baker.