Dim Sum Sunday - Bread

I am not a baker. Kneading does nothing for me. Truth be told, I don't eat that much bread. It doesn't have to accompany every meal I eat. Still, every once in a while I get the urge to bake some sort of bread. Usually that means biscuits, a fairly quick and easy bread to throw together. So you know when Jim Lahey's no knead bread cookbook popped up on my radar I had to check it out.

It's a simple concept. Measure, mix and let rise. A long rise, 12 to 20 hours. Then a second rise after which the bread is baked in a pot for an hour. You can see why this appealed to me aside from the no kneading. As long as you time it right it's very non-work intensive. The dough does all the work.

It gets all bubbly which is exactly what you want. But as you can see it's a very wet dough. I actually made two different methods of recipe. The first directly from the book...

...was beautiful on the outside but gummy on the inside which means it had rise problems. Worried that my second rise was not as robust as described in the book I went googling to see I was the only one with this problem. I was not. That lead me to a couple of websites that were helpful where the cookbook was not. The first is a post from the good folks at Breadtopia who have good suggestions if you find yourself running off the no knead track. The actual recipe I used for the second loaf is from The Steamy Kitchen.

Better than the first loaf I made but still not perfect. I'd love little denser interior and I baked it just a bit too long because the exterior is a little tougher than I like. Still it's wonderfully hearty bread that would be great with soup, stew or big hunk of cheese.