no-knead bread

jim lahey's no-knead bread first appeared on new york times in 2006, i got to know about it on the martha show in 2007. i've made it a few times in the past but somehow it never stuck.

as i was so happy with lahey's pizza dough, thought i'd give the bread another chance. it really isn' that hard, it's just takes a bit of planning as the first proofing takes up to 18 hrs.

started my bread on friday night, first mixed the dry ingredients, then added the water, took about 4 mins and that was it. put the cover on my tupperware dough bowl and forgot about it







here's the dough after 18 hrs of proofing, looks and is quite wet







this is probably the most difficult part of the whole process of making this bread, how to get the very sticky dough shaped







my pastry scraper helped a bit







the kitchen towel needs a fair amount of either flour, wheat bran or rolled oats in order for the dough not to stick on it







after i managed to get a somewhat round blob of dough on the towel, i made knots with the towel to make sure the dough would not escape... and left it proofing for another 2 hrs. that was all the work needed, you barely touch the dough, and if you had 2 pastry scrapers you wouldn't have to touch the dough at all







by which time it lookes like this







have used all sorts of pots with lids, this glass oven dish has worked best







smell of baking bread was amazing, barely controlled myself (and certain someone) from cutting the bread while still hot from the oven







this was the first time i used flour this grainy, it worked great







here with fig jam and austrian bergkäse







wonder if certain someone could learn how to make this?


ps. happy valentine's!