Impossible, you say? Keep reading. Can it be any good, you say? Keep reading. You’re not even vaguely interesting, you say? Well, what’s wrong with you? :-) I ordered a book by that very name (I mean this entry's title) and have been having so much fun with it. It works as well as its description says. I followed the directions and mixed the flour, water, salt, and yeast for 4 loaves together, just until mixed; no kneading. I put it in a container with plastic wrap over it and let it sit out for 2 hours. (Ok, that’s the minimum it suggests but you can go a lot longer or even shorter if you don’t have the time. I let it sit the 2 hours plus a couple more. Oops.) Then, you stick it in the fridge. It can keep for up to 2 weeks in the fridge.
When it comes to cooking time, you pull off a grapefruit-sized piece (about 1 lb), form it into a ball and set it on a peel sprinkled with cornmeal (although I just used a little pizza pan). It took about 30 seconds. You let it sit out, uncovered for 40 minutes. For the last 20 minutes, you preheat the oven at 450 degrees with a pizza stone and a broiler pan in there. If no pizza stone, you can just use a cookie sheet. The broiler pan is to hold a cup of hot water to steam the bread while it cooks. I don’t have one so I just use my glass pie pan. I don’t preheat it since I worry about the glass getting super hot and then having the not-as-hot water hit it.
I slide my dough ball (which often doesn’t appear to have risen much) onto the pizza stone (with a bit of smoking cornmeal as it hits the stone), set the pie pan in and let it cook for 30 minutes. I let it sit for a bit and then we devour it at the speed of light. It has a very crusty, chewy crust and very soft, slightly chewy inside. It is awesome!!
We make this almost every day. We actually went through the first 4-loaf batch in 3 days. It just requires so little time of you actually doing anything. I doubled the batch last time and we’re plowing through it again. We tried making pizza with it too and it was the best crust I’ve ever made bar none. It was also absolutely the easiest. After we finish this batch, I’m going to try the brioche recipe as well as one of the wheat ones. I just love that there is no gimmick or weird process except that you only have to do a small part of what is normally required for bread. I’ve never gotten such consistent results with any recipe.
If anyone wants more info, let me know. I feel comfortable sharing the main recipe if anyone wants it. The book has about 100 more including a chocolate bread that I’m also planning on trying. Man, I’m going to be making a lot of bread. Oh, one other awesome thing…you can freeze the individual dough balls and just thaw them overnight before you cook them. Woohoo! Frozen dough balls, here I come!!
Main Recipe:
3 c warm water, 1-1/2 Tbsp salt, 1-1/2 Tbsp yeast, 6-1/2 c flour
No comments:
Post a Comment