No-Knead Artisan Bread

The second half of January has been rough, y’all! When I set my goal to bake 101 things this year, I didn’t think about the possibility that I’d be doing some things twice because it just didn’t work the first time! I looks now like that might be the inevitability. As I get into some things that I haven’t ever done, there’s a definite learning curve. However, let’s embrace it! Two bakes=two sets of photos=the ability to see the differences in what I did wrong and how I corrected it for the next time, and maybe your ability to not make the same mistake if you try to do this at home! At least my extensive experiences in eating things translates to the ability to realize when the end result is not what I want.

I’m back to bread again this week. Yeast is my baking nemesis, and I am on a mission to bake it into submission. This loaf takes a loooooong time to rise, but it’s very hands off. There are ups and downs to this technique. The upside, it mixes together incredibly quickly, and, well, there is no kneading, so it’s a lot less work. The downside, you have to plan ahead, and if anything goes wrong, you don’t have the ability to just start it over in time for dinner. Both times I made this, I let it rise overnight and baked it when I had some time in the afternoon (“had some time” means “when the baby was asleep.”) Because the suggested initial rise time is between 12-18 hours, there is no real fear of over-proofing, so as a type of bread that fits into a busy schedule, this one checks that box. At least, as long as it works out, but I’ll get into that more later.

The first loaf, I baked with a recipe from Frugal Living NW website. She mentions in her blog that she doubled a recipe she found in a book (My Bread by Jim Lahey) to have a bigger loaf.

When I made this the second time, I made it with a different recipe from It’s Always Autumn. The quantities are very different, but also the first used bread flour, while the second used all purpose flour. Bread flour and All Purpose flour have different protein content, so these recipes are not exactly the same. I honestly just didn’t want to use 6 cups of bread flour again. I really struggled with whether to try to find the fixes for the first recipe and see what the results were or just to try to make a successful artisan loaf. I finally decided it was more beneficial to be successful. I kind of needed a win.

Below are the side-by-sides of the two doughs when I mixed them. You can clearly see how wet the dough on the left is compared to the dough on the right. Having learned from my mistake the first time around, I added a bit more flour the second time. I am no expert bread baker, and both recipes said the dough would be wet, but how wet is too wet? The baseline I used was to add flour in small quantities until the dough didn’t immediate ooze to fit the container. Ooze. Doesn’t that sound appetizing? I don’t have a better word. I was looking for the point where the dough would come away from the sides and hold its form.

From this stage, the two recipes reacted in much the same way. Covered with plastic wrap and left alone for 16 hours each, they ended up looking like this:

The only real difference visually was the volume, since one recipe was 6 cups of flour and the other was 3 cups (per the recipe. It was probably closer to 4). I was really concerned on the second time, because it was looking as if I might have the same problems the second time around. I didn’t.

Focusing here on the first dough, I could tell I was going to have trouble right away. I don’t know that there was enough flour in the world to keep this from sticking to the parchment. It was so wet, it almost soaked through. I have a three minute video (which I will spare you from watching) where I gently try to work some more flour into the dough with my scraper after I scrapped the parchment (and a good portion of the dough with it) and worked on my clean table top instead. The problem there is that I was knocking out ALL the air from the dough. That 16 hours of rise time was being slowly wasted with each scrape. It was painful.

Eventually, I got it to a consistency where I could shape it into a ball without it going floof (technical bread term) all over the counter. The instructions were to wrap it in a clean linen or cotton cloth and allow to dough to double in size over the next two hours. I had my doubts about the dough rising into the cloth, so I put some parchment under it. My dough doubts were absolutely founded, because when I came back to effortlessly plop the risen dough into the cast iron dutch oven, which had been heating in the oven for a half hour, it was just as sticky and wet and soaked into the parchment as if I hadn’t even done all that work with the flour in the first place. Sigh. This is the point in a less-than-perfect bake where I consider throwing the whole thing in the garbage and starting over, except for that 12-18 hour rise time. If I scrap it, I have no bread. Which is worse? Dense, doughy bread or no bread? Guess I had to take my chances.

I called in the troops (my husband) to hold the parchment suspended over the dutch oven while I scraped as much of the dough into the pot as possible. Again…I could SEE the air bubbles leaving the bread. I knew it would probably be dense. It was. I was pretty disappointed. I mean, I’d sunk 18 hours into this bake by this point, and I already had the beef marsala stew cooking for dinner. What would we use to sop up all that gravy goodness?

The good news is, it wasn’t a complete tragedy. Yes, it was denser than I’d have liked. It was also slightly underbaked and chewy, but none of these things made it inedible. We definitely ate it anyway. No use wasting all those ingredients. Besides, it did have a lovely, thin and crunchy outer crust. That was one promise the original post delivered on.

Clearly, I wasn’t 100% happy, and I felt I needed another shot at this bread. I could do this, and I could do it right. I waited a few days, made apple dumplings (my last post), and returned for attempt number two:

You can see that the dough is still wet, but this time around, because I’d added the extra flour, it was was more manageable. I opted for my silpat on my work surface this time, just in case. I can’t be sure the moisture wouldn’t have soaked the parchment this time, too, and the silpat worked like a dream. No scraper necessary this time either; I could take my floured hands and gently work the dough under until it formed a ball. This time, it worked the way it was described in both sets of instructions. No oozing. No floofage. No more than five minutes of hands on time.

When I took this loaf out of the oven and put it on the cooling rack, you could hear it crackling as it cooled. The bread was speaking to me! It almost seemed to still be expanding as it released the steam from the inside. That was a great sign, and something that did not happen at all with the first. Without even cutting into it, I knew there would be air bubbles and plenty of them. Needless to say, I was much happier with these results. This time, I had no stew, but I have plenty of butter in my fridge at all times, and let me tell you, that is good enough! I could have eaten the whole thing.

In summary: More is not always more. I’ll always opt for the smaller, more manageable loaf. Also, always be prepared to add more flour. If the dough flows to fit the container too readily, add more flour until it doesn’t. Both loaves were attractive on the outside, but it’s what’s inside that counts!!

I may have won this battle, yeast, but I don’t feel like I’ve won this war. Be prepared for many more episodes of bread in the coming month. It’s starting to feel personal, and I will vanquish my foe!!

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