BREAD baking

Thank you guys for the compliments! :)

I guess I have gotten the hang of the presentation thing so that now that part only takes about three minutes before putting the two loaves in the oven. I either dust with flour and then slash, or else I paint with cornstarch/water glaze, sprinkle with seeds and then slash. Goes pretty quickly. You can make up a little jar of the watery cornstarch glaze and keep it in the fridge to use for about 3 weeks. For seeds, I use white sesame, black sesame, or poppy seed. It's fun to try different slash patterns, too. Sometimes we just like the flour dusting with no seeds at all.
I have found that baking them in the pre-heated cast iron pots creates perfect crusts every time without any steam pans or water spraying, etc. Using parchment to move the loaves and lower them into the pots makes life way easier. :)

I bought some black sesame seeds from a local South Asian store. I'm going to try a loaf in the dutch oven this weekend. Pics, if they're worthy, will be forthcoming.

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Originally Posted by tulip

I bought some black sesame seeds from a local South Asian store. I'm going to try a loaf in the dutch oven this weekend. Pics, if they're worthy, will be forthcoming.

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Exciting!! :p
Be sure to preheat the oven at least 30 minutes with the dutch oven in there.


Using parchment paper helps to lower the loaf into the pot quickly without having it deflate. the paper doesn't mind the high temps, just gets dark brown and brittle and gets tossed afterwards.
I start the bread off at 500F and covered pot for 20m then I remove the lid and turn down to 450 for another 20m or so, but you'll have your own method I'm sure.

I'm excited to find out how your loaf goes!

Is it wrong that I had to buy a second fridge so that I could bake bread again?

Yes, I had to give up making this bread in the interest of using all available fridge space for milk and eggs. We currently have more than 6 dozen eggs and about 7 gallons of milk to store! I finally broke down and bought a small fridge for the milk so that I finally have room to store dough again! :o

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Originally Posted by GLC1968

Is it wrong that I had to buy a second fridge so that I could bake bread again?

Yes, I had to give up making this bread in the interest of using all available fridge space for milk and eggs. We currently have more than 6 dozen eggs and about 7 gallons of milk to store! I finally broke down and bought a small fridge for the milk so that I finally have room to store dough again! :o

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It's not wrong at all- I think it's great!
My big new veggie garden is being dug right now and we plan to get a modest basement freezer maybe next year to start storing the berries and vegetables that i don't wind up canning. But first things first. ;)
I too find it a little difficult to find fridge space to store my dough for bread. My solution is to just make bread more often- 2 loaves every 3 days or so.

Awww, I wish it was cool enough to bake bread. I'll have to remember to look at this thread in November. It's too bloody hot to bake much of anything right now. Those loaves of bread look so yummy!!! And I'm hungry. Grumble. :(

Beth, I used to live in Puerto Rico so I totally understand the just-too-hot-to-bake thing. :o Things will cool down before you know it!

I had a delightful and relaxing fourth of July. Breakfast out, a bicycle ride, harvesting a bumper crop of fresh lettuce, organizing books.
Then in the late afternoon I mixed up a lot of dough and made two white boules from it before putting the rest in the fridge to 'ripen' for baking over the next week or so.
They came out so nicely. I just love making bread now that I've gotten the hang of this 'artisan no-knead' method well enough. Nothing fancy- our favorite is still just the plain old white boule from the basic starting recipe.

I started out baking on a baking stone with a steam pan underneath, but it seems that using the cast iron Dutch oven pots instead of the stone, and leaving the lids tightly closed for the first 20 minutes at 500F is really the key for me to get more oven spring and a crispy golden crust. After 20 minutes I take the lids off and bake for another 15 or 20 minutes at 450F.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3605/...ff3eb0c0a1.jpg

And GLC- Lots of people buy extra freezers to store their food bounty and economize. So why shouldn't one buy an extra refrigerator if you have unusually large fresh food storage needs? It's not like a useless mink coat or something, after all! ;D

excuse me, you are not KNEADING the dough to make those lovely little loaves?
I don't get it!

Bread surely tastes as lovely as it looks. It looks so ..arty, bleeckerstgirl. :)

hmm mouthwatering bread. They look so delish...

Time to bake another loaf tomorrow. :D :D :D maybe two loaves.

Oh we do have a second fridge in the garage and a deep freezer. We filler up with after thanksgiving turkey, freebie turkey and the like. I got my deep freezer off e-bay of all places and had it shipped from the east coast. And it was still cheaper than buying it here on the west coast.

You might check into e-bay for new equipment or used commercial equipment. They may not be pretty like sub-zero, or Amana but if it goes in the garage, I don't care if it looks industrial. In fact my deep freezer is industrial with NSF certification (okay for commercial use).

And no Mimi, kneading is not required. One thing we noticed though. These bread don't seem to hold up as well as the old traditional style. Or is this just me? I have a dough hook on my mixer so I went back to the kneading way. I just turn on the switch and two minutes later its finished kneading. Well I do knead briefly for the added measure and hand touch.

I think Bao is in order too. :D

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Originally Posted by smilingcat

One thing we noticed though. These bread don't seem to hold up as well as the old traditional style. Or is this just me?

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What do you mean by 'hold up as well'? Do you mean mold?
I guess I'm not having that problem- our bread sits out on the counter with no problems for us. Usually it's eaten within 2 days, but on the rare occasion it's been out for 3 or 4 days it's still been fine.

That's right mimi, no kneading. You just mix a batch of wettish dough, let it rise for 2 hours til it starts collapsing again, then either use it or put in fridge to develop more flavor for up to 10 days. Then when you want to bake, you pull off a pound or so of it, quickly stretch it under itself to form a loaf with a nice surface tension, let it rest for 40-50 minutes, then bake. It does most of it's rising in the hot oven.

I don't buy bread I always make it because I don't like all the preservatives found in store bought bread. (No bakeries near me). But when I don't want to wait 2 hrs for new batch of artisan bread I use this. Here is a no-yeast quick bread recipe I use when I don't have a lot of time or I come home from work around 7 or 8 pm and want bread with my dinner. It's Navajo fry bread, except I NEVER fry it. I ALWAYS grill it even in the winter:

2 cups flour
2 Tablespoon powdered milk (just for a little flavor)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 Tablespoon shortening (yeah, I know)
2/3 cup hot water

I actually mix this in a food processor for all of a minute, then pat it out into a log and cover it or use food wrap and rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Then I pull off a piece and roll it out fairly thin to the size of a pie shell. I brush olive oil on both sides and then I grill the rolled out dough. It's actually quite tasty especially when it's grilled. If I have a little more time I'll sautee onions and garlic and add fresh thyme and basil and then put it on one side of the dough and flip the other side over it in half.

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Originally Posted by mudmucker

I don't buy bread I always make it because I don't like all the preservatives found in store bought bread. (No bakeries near me). But when I don't want to wait 2 hrs for new batch of artisan bread I use this. Here is a no-yeast quick bread recipe I use when I don't have a lot of time or I come home from work around 7 or 8 pm and want bread with my dinner. It's Navajo fry bread, except I NEVER fry it. I ALWAYS grill it even in the winter:

2 cups flour
2 Tablespoon powdered milk (just for a little flavor)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 Tablespoon shortening (yeah, I know)
2/3 cup hot water

I actually mix this in a food processor for all of a minute, then pat it out into a log and cover it or use food wrap and rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Then I pull off a piece and roll it out fairly thin to the size of a pie shell. I brush olive oil on both sides and then I grill the rolled out dough. It's actually quite tasty especially when it's grilled. If I have a little more time I'll sautee onions and garlic and add fresh thyme and basil and then put it on one side of the dough and flip the other side over it in half.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you... I used to have a navajo flat bread recipe then I lost it. This looks lot like it except for the shortening. I remember the powdered milk, baking powder... but the shortening I don't remember??? The one I had, could be taken as a mix for mountaineering. Just add water bit of oil in the pan drop the dough in the pan and let it bake. And we would have hot bread at 12,000+ feet elevation. Didn't have to adjust for the thin air. I liked that bread it was yummy.

and Hi Lisa,

I guess I'm doing something wrong because it gets moldy after two days :( I wonder if it has to do with all that extra water in the dough and not allowing it to escape when I'm cooling it off on a cooling rack. :confused: :confused:

After you finish baking yours and comes straight out of the oven, what do you do??

If I try to bake my dough at 400+ F, the crust would get burnt black. I have a convection oven where the fan can not be turned off. I bake mine at 375 for about 10 minutes then drop the temp down to 325 then down to 275. Maybe I still have wayyy too much moisture in the bread.

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Originally Posted by smilingcat

Thank you, thank you, thank you... I used to have a navajo flat bread recipe then I lost it. This looks lot like it except for the shortening. I remember the powdered milk, baking powder... but the shortening I don't remember??? The one I had, could be taken as a mix for mountaineering. Just add water bit of oil in the pan drop the dough in the pan and let it bake. And we would have hot bread at 12,000+ feet elevation. Didn't have to adjust for the thin air. I liked that bread it was yummy.

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I believe there may be some "recipes" that don't have the shortening. I wouldn't mind reducing/removing that portion out of the recipe, so I think I'll start experimenting and adjusting until I find a result I like.

As I recall the traditional recipies for fry bread used lard. So shortening is slightly less terrible ;)

I just ate the stuff when my neighbors made it :D
(fried in lard)