really late to the party

I’m probably one of the last people to make the famous No Knead Bread. Many factors kept me from it: my being mostly gluten free, thinking I’d screw it up, not having an appropriate vessel to bake the bread in.

Slowly many of the things that made me really shy away from baking in general went away. I adopted my bluebird of happiness and more recently a second, much heavier bluebird of joy found space in my nest. (Homegoods has some really nice sized ones and prices right now. We got ours at the brand outlet at what we thought was a really nice discount. Do you really need the name brand? No. I was buying one as an engagement gift for a very Very good pair of friends and E surprised me because well, it was a decent price and we knew we were buying ONE of these in our lifetime, also go bigger, you can always cook less, it’s hard to cook more if you don’t have the space. Unless it won’t fit in your oven.)

Reminder: E is not gluten free.

I finally looked at the ingredients of E’s bread the other day and was sad. I told him I could try to make him bread, maybe not every week, but there shouldn’t be more than 4 ingredients in his bread.

edited to clarify (and an honest thank you to bonnie, I left out a whole section when I typed this up): It should only have about four types of ingredients, unless he wants extras like raisins or olives. In my opinion, different flour/grain combination count as one, but I should be able to pronounce and identify everything in his bread. Yes, I know there are store bought breads without long lists of modern marvels, but somehow those never ended up in our shopping cart…

We brought home a bag of bread flour and I pulled out the recipe on a Thursday and was amazed at how easy it was. But it took a while. I recalled, since I was so late to the party, that a second speedier version appeared. I found. I baked.

I made it again, tossing flour, yeast, salt, and water in my mixer at 5:30am and baking it in time for dinner.

YUM.

I keep making it. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve made this bread for him already. I made him bagels the other day too. He hasn’t bought bread since I started baking this. I take that as success!

This success has me eager to re-visit Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Artisan Revolution Continues with Whole Grains, Fruits, and Vegetables and other bread books. Do you have one you would like to recommend?

I admit, the first time I was skeptical that something so, well, ugly and untraditional would turn out so yummy! Yes, I do test each loaf with a small slice. For the loaf that’s pictured below, I was too impatient to take the photos for this post and I took it out of the oven a bit earlier than I probably should have. Oh well, it’s still yummy!

• Category: food
• Tag: bread