Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Mark Bittman's Speedy No-Knead Bread Recipe

I've long been a fan of Mark Bittman. D wanted to "learn" cooking some time ago and I got him Bittman's How to Cook Everything for his birthday. D hasn't used it much, but I have. Constantly.

The one area where he leaves me somewhat cold is baking. I haven't had the best success with his various baking recipes, so when his "No-Knead Bread" was tearing up the internet, I was skeptical.

I also often don't have the planning time to put dough in the fridge for a day or two. I wanted something where my boys could eat bread and then I could make some more. Quickly.

Well, another issue I had with it was it called for a dutch oven, and I believed I needed a cast iron dutch oven, which is something I don't own. A more savvy friend told me, however, that an enameled dutch oven was just fine, as long as the cast iron was underneath. It was. And a love affair was born.

The gorgeous photo will have to wait for later, as I forgot to take pictures with my last loaf, and my current loaf is rising as I write this.

Suffice it to say that we now have gorgeous loaves of tangy, artisan bread for a mere $1.67 for 16 BIG slices. Suffice it to say, I couldn't be happier.

Want in on the goodness? Go here (and you can also find the gorgeous photos that I didn't supply this week).

NOTE: Do NOT try the whole wheat recipe - it doesn't seem to work that well. I'm still working on a no-knead recipe for decent whole wheat bread - if you have any ideas, please let me know.

Happy Wednesday!

Oh... and for my calorie-counting friends, here's the nutritional info, provided by sparkrecipes.com:

Fat: 1.1g
Carbohydrates: 18.1g
Calories:94.2
Protein: 2.6g

A serving = 1/16th of the loaf. It's a decent sized serving.

2 comments:

Doodlemama said...

Whole wheat - substitute 1/2 whole wheat flour, make sure the first rise is 18 hours, and let the second rise go for 4-6 hours. Works great for us.

Anonymous said...

We've tried both his and the Cook's Illustrated version. The Cooks version tastes better. But they are both lovely and so easy to make.