BREAD baking

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Beth, I used to live in Puerto Rico so I totally understand the just-too-hot-to-bake thing. 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.


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