No-Knead Bread, Again

No one could have predicted that Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread would be featured on my blog mere days after the original post. Except maybe Karen could have predicted it, because she had a lot of input on my first effort. I mentioned this to Stefan as we perused the menu at dinner on Saturday, and he asked me whether she had tasted the bread. 

No. No, she hadn't tasted the bread, but she had seen the bread, and that was enough. 

If I have things my way, I like a solid 75-25 ratio of compliments-to-constructive feedback (some people might call this a compliments-to-criticism ratio, but not me). Karen and my mom tend to reverse that ratio when it comes to their respective topics of expertise, but that doesn't matter because they're also always right. 

Here's what I learned: 

1. My blog is awesome and hilarious. 

YEAH. Give me love and praise, my babies. 

2. To avoid flat-bread syndrome, one should place the dough in a bowl with steep sides for the second rise. 

My bread was flat, I admit it. But I was just following directions! Jim really put me in a tight spot on this one. 

So I let my sequel bread rise in the Kitchen Aid mixer bowl this time around. After two hours of rising the dough was big and tall and round and promised to make a fat ball of bread. Yas. 

Then I dumped the dough into the Staub and watched it deflate as it hit the bottom. No. No.  

They're the same. 

3. Remember my discovery that Jim was trying to trick us all with the wet-dough-on-towel mess? The towel should be well-floured. 

It's just, remember this picture? That bottom towel used to be green. Would the laws of physics and science really have allowed any more flour to get on that towel? 

Karen says yes. And she was 98% right! She was also 2% wrong, because a walnut-sized piece of dough glued itself to the well-floured towel, resulting in the deflating of the bread and two cowlicks.

There and there.

4. The bread should have a much darker, golden-brown color. Did I remember to take the lid off the Staub half-way through the bake?

This one cut me to the core. Of course I took the lid off! That was the easiest part of the entire recipe. But she was right. My bread was anemic and under-baked and so much better when I increased the temperature to 500 after removing the lid. 

Browner. Better.

Bubbles after 18 hours of fermenting.

Dough post-18 hours of fermenting, pre-2 hours of rising.