Bread!

Ever since I read Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In, I've been dying to try the No Knead Bread method that came out in 2006. Here's the NY Times article that started it all. I'm likening it to the slow-cooker method. You know, you put all of your ingredients in the slow cooker, leave to go to work and when you come home you have dinner ready. That's a bit what this bread method is like.

First, you have to plan a day ahead of time to make it. I started mine around lunchtime with the intention of having it baked and ready for dinner the following evening (I had made some semi-clam chowder and we had at least one leftover meal left out of it).

It really couldn't have been easier. I mixed my bread, salt, and yeast and then added the water per the instructions. I also tossed in a couple of teaspoons of fresh chopped rosemary. I then wrapped the bowl in plastic wrap and left it.

Now, I think that although my recipe worked, I have a sneaking suspicion that my kitchen is way too cold to actually allow the chemicals to all work their magic. I found a tip online where the person heats her oven to 350 for one minute and then turns it off, placing the bread into the warmed oven to rise.

The instructions for the following day are to roll the dough into a ball and leave under a towel to rise for two hours. I left mine for an hour and a half with no real results. The tip did say that eventually even bread left in a cold kitchen will rise, but I stuck mine in the oven for 30 min and then proceeded with the baking instructions and it worked fine.

After plopping the dough into the hot Crueset pot, I sprinkled about 1/4-1/2 cup flaked Parmesan over the top. And voila! 45 minutes later we had bread.

Mike walked in the door about 30 minutes after that and promptly ate half the loaf. We had more with the soup and it was fantastic!

So here's my recipe adapted from the NY Times adaptation:

Rosemary Parmesan No Knead Bread

3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons fresh chopped rosemary

1/4-1/2 cup Parmesan flakes

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups (that's 1 cup and 10 tablespoons since my measuring cup didn't have eighths) water and chopped rosemary, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth -- I used plain dinner napkins) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. I sprinkled my Parmesan over the dough at this point, trying to get all of it on the surface of the dough and not the heated pot. Cover the pot with the lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes (I only allowed mine 15 since it was already a bit browned from the melted cheese and I didn't want to burn that), until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

The way I see it, the possibilities with this recipe are endless. I'm going to do some research on how to make sweet loaves (Erway mentioned a couple that were baked in her book), but I'm thinking of doing roasted garlic next -- roasting the garlic and then mixing them in on the second day. Kalamata olives are also a possibility. Man, just thinking about it is making me hungry and I've already come up with a few more to try as well!