The Lahey (New York Times) No-Knead Bread Recipe: one baker's experience

Like (it seems) about half the Internet-connected bread bakers on the planet, EuroCuisineLady has been experimenting with the New York Times-published recipe from Sullivan Street Bakery's Jim Lahey for no-knead bread. (The original NYT article, which talks more about the recipe's genesis, is here. The article discussing the ensuing discussion, and suggesting possible fine-tuning, is here.)

The basic idea is surprisingly simple. Mix up the bread dough to a really-thick-batterlike consistency, then let it rise cool and very slow rather than warm and fast. We're talking an eighteen- to twenty-four-hour rise here (though we've done it in as little as twelve). Shape it minimally and turn it out onto a floured cloth for a secondary rise (two hours or so). Then bake it in a preheated, lidded pot. This treatment generates the confined live steam that provokes that coveted pain-de-campagne-type crust....and you don't have to shell out something like $3000 for an oven with a steam injector.

So far we've done the bread at least twenty times, with varying flour mixtures and equipment. All of them have turned out at least tolerably well. A number of times they've been spectacular: when you hear the bread's crust making that crackle-crackle noise as it cools, you know you've got a winner. The loaves rise nicely and have a nice springy crumb, not at all too solid.

Discussions about this bread are going on here and there. Our two cents, for anyone reading this who's seen the recipe and is interested in trying it:

(a) All our efforts have been with garden-variety UK/Irish style "plain" / "strong white" flour. This has worked all right, but we suspect proper bread flour would work better, as our flour tends to be strong on the soft wheats and can therefore be a little disappointing in the gluten department. Adding rye flour is OK (we were was using Doves Farm organic stoneground rye), as far as about 15% of the total amount. (The first recipe was measured in cups: fortunately the "fine-tune" article offers conversions to volume, which in my opinion work better for baking.) We liked the rye version best, especially the one we did with a lot of caraway seeds, but then ECL is a Jewish-rye freak, and EuroCuisineGuy is mad for caraway.

(b) The highest possible temperatures in the preheating (noncommercial) oven are vital. We have a fan oven which is officially rated for 230° C but actually achieves closer to 240°. We understand trying to work at this temperature is a problem for people working with modern Le Creuset pots, which have plastic handles that are vulnerable to heats that high. Fortunately, all our ironware is vintage Le Cousances, with metal handles, and these pots shrug off such minor problems. (Annoyingly, Le Creuset bought the Le Cousances company in order to get hold of their rival's name and put them out of business, boo hiss boo. So they have the name now, but the pots being sold as "Le Creuset Cousances" are in our opinion nowhere near as good as the originals...and have those miserable plastic knobs. Fortunately, you can still find the older, better Cousances pots on eBay -- here's one, for example.) Anyway, if your oven won't go past 220° C / 450° F, just start your preheating really early -- give that pot an hour or so in there at top heat -- and we'd guess things will still probably work out OK.

(c) This may be the wettest, floppiest bread dough you will ever have seen. Don't panic. It's going to be all right. Don't overflour it during the short time you're shaping it after the first rise, and have something handy to scrape your work surface with; because there's just no way out of it, this stuff is going to stick to something sooner or later. (Mostly you.)

(d) Don't be afraid that the dough's going to stick to the baking vessel when you dump it in there. For some reason, it absolutely will not. It's miraculous that way.

(e) You don't need a huge pot for this. A small one does fine, especially considering that the dough is so floppy. The Cousances pot we were using has a 2-liter capacity.

(f) The ensuing bread tastes really good. If you make this, better buy more butter.

...This technique is also very successful using a clay baker like a Romertopf.

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