When Nothing is Worth Something

February 11th, 2010

Sicilian With Holes

Today The Pragmatic Chef left a comment about no-knead bread, as presented at the site Breadtopia. The basic idea is this: prepare dough by stirring the dry stuff together and adding the wet stuff, then let it sit for 18 hours, then fold it a couple of times, then let it rise, then bake.

He complained of big voids in the finished product, but for Sicilian pizza, those would be a plus, so naturally, I had to make dough.

I just mixed two cups of bread flour with yeast and my other ingredients. I used much more yeast than the Breadtopia people, because I need a product that’s ready to go in an hour or so. We’ll see what it looks like.

This could be a great thing for people without food processors or big mixers. Truthfully, it won’t save me any labor. In fact, it’s harder than using a food processor. But the big voids would be nice.

Posted in Food and Cooking | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “When Nothing is Worth Something”

  1. Bob Says:
    February 11th, 2010 at 11:55 AM

    I can testify that I have now been making the bread in this recipe for a few months now and cannot praise it too highly. If you explore the site you will find lots more “no-knead” recipes and based on my experience with both this company’s recipes and products they would all be top notch.

    http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-knead-crusty-white-bread-recipe

    zeeker

  2. Bob Says:
    February 11th, 2010 at 11:59 AM

    One more link with excellent photos and directions in case you miss it in the previous article. Zeeker

    http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2009/12/01/the-crunchiest-crackliest-chewiest-lightest-easiest-bread-youll-ever-bake/

  3. Virgil Says:
    February 11th, 2010 at 12:40 PM

    I’ve resisted commenting on using a mixer or a food processor for handling Pizza dough, but now that you’ve brought it up let me say this about that.

    I started out ignorant and lazy when I started making pizza, and I really just tossed my dough together–wet and dry ingredients, and handled it a little on a floured surface to get the consistency right (wet versus dry) then let it rise and then punch it down and fold it around and then roll it out with a rolling pin.

    I have a giant 6 quart home Kitchenaid mixer with a dough hook but like your experience unless you’re making four pizzas worth of dough you spend all of your time chasing your blob off the hook shaft and back down into the bowl…and my crust came out tougher than I liked the one time I did it in the mixer.

    Now I make crust all the time not handling it for more than a minute or two TOTAL and it comes out fine…I just let it have about 1-1/2 to 2 hours to rise while I fool around on the Computer or work in the shop. I roll and handle it out oversize and fold about a 3/4″ to 1″ lip around the rim, then I load it up with sauce and toppings and give it another 15 or 20 minutes to do a secondary rise, then I do use a stone and a 550 deg F oven but my thicker crusts takes about 17 to 20 minutes to crisp.

  4. lauraw Says:
    February 11th, 2010 at 2:18 PM

    big voids would be nice.

    There’s fiber supplements for that.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frd53vbCHLg