If you are fortunate enough not to have had either a. a classical education, i.e. forcefed Latin and Greek, or b. a Catholic upbringing, i.e. forcefed Church Latin, you will need a translation, which is roughly: Behold, my friends, bread, or more to my taste Hey, fellers, bread!
We had a moderately cool day, weather in the mid eighties, so I got to work to make my first foray into the no knead bread world. I've made a lot of bread over the years, including the kneaded kind which was tough on my hands, and the bread was so good it was eaten far too fast.
I would make what I thought was enough to last us a week at the usual rate of consumption, and find by next day just a bit of end left. So I thought, dangit, what's the point, they'll only eat it!
But now if I don't have to knead it, and if I can keep a supply of dough happily waiting a few days in the fridge, it's better, so I am back into it. And I made the Classic Wholewheat Loaf, baking two loaves from the dough I'd prepared. What fun.
It tastes absolutely great. nice crust, nice crumb, (note my new casual use of technical terms I just learned this week), went over well.
After I'd taken the book's tip and used my oven thermometer to discover that my oven is about fifty degrees wrong, the big fibber, and I put the reading up a lot.
And finding that putting a broiler pan with hot water in it under the bread made a terrific steam atmosphere for it, and that my old cookie sheet, rubbed with a wrapper from the butter -- always save them in the freezer, to grease dishes with -- and finding that my hand driven wooden flat spoon thing worked perfectly fine with minimum stress, and finding that my local supermarket has started stocking King Arthur flour, a first, and vital wheat gluten, which stunned me, thinking it was going to be a specialty search.
So many discoveries in the course of doing an age old low tech thing.
Now I'll take the book back to the libe, in anticipation of receiving my own copy soon in the mail.
And sorry, I don't ship!
Looking good (and I'm sure I can smell it from here)!
ReplyDeleteGreat you found the things you needed - so often one doesn't, at least not close by. The results look delicious.
ReplyDeleteNice! Way too hot here for ovenici, amici. But I made okra pickles today, with garlic and red peppers.
ReplyDeleteLooks good. smells delicious and would go great with the Blueberry and Apple Jamici I made today. Yumm.
ReplyDeleteOh, yum - that looks like just the right kind of bread to slather with good butter and set down next to a bowl of homemade soup.
ReplyDeleteI'll be right over.
Okra pickles?
ReplyDeleteLiane, don't be disgusting!
Bread looks yummers, Liz. That is one of my fall projects this year.
What a pity you don't ship. It looks delicious. I hear you on the "it gets eaten too quickly". We have a bread maker and hardly use it because we get too fat.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your book when you get it.
Minimiss