i am making bread again

i used to be afraid of yeast.



i recently bought one of those "passion" notebooks by moleskine and my sister added the first recipe: sour dough and yeast bread. reason enough for me to start the breadmaker!



perfect shape.
perfect taste.

i have to see (make, taste) for myself!

there is a hype going on in the foodblog world right now about this super-easy no-knead bread.

i think many other foodbloggers where shaking their heads in disbelief like i did, but by now i saw so many posts regarding the gorgeous results of this no-effort-recipe and i am convinced: i have to try this now. i have to pass the torch!

according to jim lahey of the sullivan street bakery in new york you only need water, flour, instant yeast, salt - and no tricks!

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 1/2 cups of water

... are the exact measurements. i always have that in my kitchen cupboard, so lets get to work. actually, i will let the yeast do the work over night. it should take me only a few seconds to throw the ingredients together.

check out the video of mark bittman (nyt) right here. and stay tuned. i will post the results in about 20 hours. maybe i will be one of the many people fascinated by the simplicity of the recipe and the lovely result.


all i have to do now is figure out how many °Celsius 515 °Fahrenheit are ... i can hardly wait until i come home from work tomorrow and finally bake this baby ... and join the hype of the blogosphere.

technorati tags: no-knead bread, bread

update:

this recipe seems to be really foolproof. when i came home from work today the dough had rested for about 20 hours and doubled its size. i was pretty impressed! yes i know, yeast does that to flour and water :) the smell of the dough when i lifted the cloth was a bit weird. it reminded me a lot of beer, actually. i was afraid that the bread might end up tasting like this too ... but it didn't.

one challenge i had to face was the baking itself. since my oven is not working propperly i had to stick the bread into my mini grill/oven-type of thing (which actually is half broken too ...). and since the capacity of this thing is very very limited i could not use a pot and a lid.


i placed the dough in my casserole and tinkered an aluminium foil "hat / lid / cover". that is very lame, i know. but look how perfect the bread came out after one hour on 235 °C (again, this damn mini grill /oven is not able to produce more heat)


perfect, don't you think?

it certainly tasted wonderful, a lot like ciabatta. and despite i am a big big fan of dark bread i really like this one and i will definitely make my own white bread from now on.

let me sum this up: you need flour, instant yeast, salt and water and it does not even seem to matter if you don't stick to the instructions religiously.

instead of a pot and a lid i used my casserole and some aluminium foil.
instead of 268 °C i baked it on 235 °C.

don't be scared to improvise!
be creative!
how much easier can it get?

... now let me get back to my light evening meal with my lovely bread ...

give me gebäck!

tomorrow is world bread day! oh yeah - bread, bread, a thousand times bread!

i am a big fan of bread in general, especially the gorgeous dark schwarzbrot, the tasty loaf of bauernbrot and first and foremost (for me at least) the beloved gebäck in every way, shape and form. while i could survive on bread only i am a big big fan of the austrian gebäck. the propper english translation seems to be pastry, but as an austrian i have to say this is not entirely what i mean by gebäck. the english word "pastry" would much rather be our feingebäck, the sweet strudel or the sweet tart. when we speak of gebäck, we mean savory tiny little breads. i guess you can much rather compare gebäck with scones or bread rolls. we often like to call this little piece of bread weckerl.

in any given bakery, even in the tiniest shop around the corner you can find a gigantic selection of those tiny little breads. in austria and southern germany the semmel is the king of tiny breads, while the rest of the german speaking world you would simply call it brötchen, the diminutive of bread. we have kaisersemmel, kornspitz, mohnflesserl, salzspitz, vintschgerl, wachauerweckerl, kipferl, grahamweckerl, kartoffelweckerl and a wide, wide range of kornweckerl - fitnessweckerl, kürbiskernweckerl, schusterlaibchen, müsliweckerl, sesamweckerl ... i could ramble on for a while :) i especially like the ones with salt, caraway seeds or the mini breadloafs made of rye and spelt.


but my favorite gebäck of all is the good old mohnflesserl. a mohnflesserl is a traditional austrian gebäck, looking similar to a braided yeast bun. it is made from white bread dough, it is sprinkled with poppy-seeds and sometimes salt. i just love my mohnflesserl with poppy-seeds and salt. and while i also love it with jam, salami, cheese ... whatever! the best way to eat your mohnflesserl is with plain butter ...


but the task for bread day is to make bread yourself. what a challenge, because i have never made bread myself. so i went for groceries in order to buy flour, yeast, sour dough or whatever you need for making a decent loaf of bread. first off i needed to get inspired in my bookshop though. of course i did buy one of the bread books on display there ...


although in the books it's described as "very easy" to make your own bread, i suddenly lost confidence. i thought i might need a few trials (and maybe errors?) in my bread baking adventures. i was strolling through the aisles of the supermarket and i suddenly lost all my will to make bread from scratch in fear of not succeeding. though my general cooking skills are pretty okay i thought i'd rather head to the aisle with the bread mixes. i have never used a mix for making bread either, but adding water should be something i'd be able to manage despite of my lost confidence in making bread from scratch ...

i am sorry if i have to disappoint you here, but i did not want to show you my flat, not risen and hard-as-stone bread for a blog event :) yeah. i am a coward, i know - i could always pass a flat austrian bread for tiroler schüttelbrot *g* ...


so there you go. i am making bread, but i am faking it. i decided to take a brown bread mix, which would result in a kind of kornspitz-gebäck. i like kornspitz!

while it is easy to add water to the bread mix you still have to have some time on your hands. you have to let the dough rest for an hour, then form little buns or weckerl and let them rest for another 40 minutes. okay, fine with me. and i just prepared my first (fake)homemade bread! is there anything better than eating warm bread right out of the oven on a sunday morning?! i doubt it!

i need to keep this in mind if i ever have a boy over for a "pyjama party" :) i bet i can (also) seduce a man with my cooking skills on sunday mornings ... or i'll show him where the bread mix is and tell him to read the instructions - after all, the way to a womans heart is through her stomach too!

so check out the photos of my (still single) sunday adventure:


read the instructions on your bread mix!


add water and mix. knead for 8 minutes.


let the dough rest for an hour.


form little buns and let rest again for 40 minutes.


make sure to add a little bowl of water in the oven when baking the bread.
bake on 230 °C for about half an hour.


yum-mie!
the purer the better, if you ask me!
but a little butter and a little bell pepper does not hurt either!

though i might take on the challenge of making bread from scratch i definitely need to have the breadmix in my kitchen cabinet from now on - whether if it's for myself, for mister right or for mister right now, i could easily get used to making my own bread on sunday mornings!

hey, thanks for listening to my debacheries!

this blog event is hosted by 1x umrühren bitte
technorati tags: world bread day '06, world bread day 06