Lisa and I were at the bookstore yesterday, and I caught a glimpse of Jim Lahey's book My Bread. A few friends had mentioned Lahey's no-knead bread recipe that appeared in the New York Times a few years ago and set off a no-knead bread frenzy, so feeling somewhat inspired I decided to give it a go. Results below.
The crust looks awesome. It was my first shot at cooking the bread in a dutch oven instead of on a pizza stone (which works better for baguettes). After 10 minutes of pre-heating I noticed a funky smell, which turned out to be the plastic knob on the lid of my 5 1/2 qt. le creuset dutch oven melting! After taking the lid out of the oven and a few quick google searches later, I discovered that the knobs are only certified for up to 450*F (vs. 475-500*F required for bread baking). Good to know. After removing the knob from the lid (it screws off easily) I was back on track. It's worth noting that you can buy stainless steel replacement knobs that can withstand higher temperatures.
On the final result, my loaf feels a bit dense given that I mistakenly used dry active yeast instead of the instant yeast called for in the recipe and failed to make the necessary adjustments (er, like activating my dry active yeast..). Not bad for a first effort though. As you'd expect without much kneading, the preparation time was significantly shorter than that required for other recipes. I'm intrigued -- the next shot at this recipe will involve proper proportions of yeast. It looks promising.
The day didn't end there though. I did take a stab at a chocolate chip and pecan brownie / cookie hybrid recipe from the Bakerella website. Pictures below. Somewhat over-baked. I underestimated how much they would harden while cooling. The theme seems to be errors this weekend. I will need to six sigma my baking process. The brownie-cookies are still tasty in their own kind of crunchy over-baked way.
We're off to dinner tonight hosted by our friends Jim & Sarah where I will foist my frankenstein-like creations on them and have a few heavily biased judges to render the final verdict and protect my fragile baking-ego.
