I started my bread baking JoUrNeY today – I am going through Bonnie Ohara’s book ‘Bread Baking for Beginners’ and trying to cook a recipe each weekend. Bonnie runs Alchemy Bread and bakes tons of beautiful bread. This weekend was the the master recipe: no knead bread. I thought it wouldn’t be too hard because there there was no kneading involved, but I was wrong.
I threw away my first dough, I’m not sure where I went wrong but it was SO sticky – it just was impossible to work with. So, I scrapped it and started fresh. This time, I was very precise with my measurements and temperature. A big point in the book is that the temperature of your house and flour determines what temperature your water needs to be. I think in my first batch, my temps were off. After paying close attention to the temps and measurements, my dough came out a lot better. It wasn’t as sticky – it was still a ‘wet’ dough (which it should be) but it wasn’t completely stuck to me.
When it came time to proof the dough, mine needed extra time. The book says if its cold in the house it will need more time and currently it is 5 degrees outside, so it is probably chillier than normal inside today. Also, to test if your dough has risen enough they say to pinch off a piece and drop it into a cup of water – if it rises it is ready. After one failed attempt, I waited 30 more minutes to try again. My husband suggested playing Rise Up by Andra Day to encourage the bread to rise up to the top of the water, and as soon as we did it decided to float to the top. I’m not saying thats the secret to success, but I’m not ruling it out.
I was beyond excited to bake it and see how I did; however, I ran into a couple issues. 1. My bread started to smell like it was burning but the top was still not totally browned and 2. when I was done baking my bread, it was stuck to my dutch oven.
My bread looks beautiful (except for the bottom where a chunk is missing)- it is currently cooling so I haven’t tried it yet but a bread this pretty has to taste good.
Lessons for next time:
- Pay close attention to temperatures – precision in the beginning means less dough thrown away.
- Move the rack up to not burn the bottom. The oven is SUPER hot and on this first bread I used the bottom rack, which is why the bottom burned. Next time, I will move the rack up and also put a pan on the rack below the bread this way there will be less direct heat to the bottom.
- Flour your bread up a lot before you put it into the dutch oven to cook. My bread did not come out easily after it was baked, I think I needed more flour either on the bottom of the dutch over or on the bottom of my bread. OR maybe it was so stuck because it was burnt…who knows. But, next time I will use more flour or maybe parchment paper.
- Serrated bread knives do a great job of scraping burnt bits off the bottom