Adventures in Bread Making: Whole Wheat Flour No-Knead Bread

Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread is familiar. It’s a good starter bread, and one that I’ve made a good six to eight times now.

I usually use all-purpose flour, but I had some whole wheat bread flour lying around. Now, I should have done a blend of AP and whole wheat flour, but for the sake of experimentation I went with 100% whole wheat. And it was whole wheat bread flour at that, which should be left to more experienced bakers. Unfortunately, the flour was also bought at Bulk Barn. The result? While the loaf is far more nutritious than white bread, it’s just a bit too healthy. And no one really eats bread for its nutritious value, do they?

BUT…the crust had great caramelization, it crackled coming out of the oven and did a satisfying crunch when sliced. The crumb texture could have been airier and moist though.

I was aiming for a sandwich bread, but it’s more of a dense toast bread. A guilt-free toast bread that I load up with nutella. Because. All that bran. (Alternately, if you prefer savouries, I bet it goes well with mustard and salami….or gravlax…hmm…)

As for the pumpkin seeds, they were an afterthought. I saw them on the counter when I came home and remembered Boulangerie Guillaume’s sunflower seed baguettes. Why not, right? I tried to press them in as much as I could before popping the bread in the oven. Will incorporate them into the dough next time.

Jim Lahey’s No Knead Bread recipe found here.

Happy Happy Thursday!

It can only mean Friday is just a day away, right?

I’ve been craving a lot of comfort food and baked goods lately. While they’re not exactly what I was looking for, I eventually decided to make the easiest things I could this past weekend: bread and another simple cake using up some overripe pears. Recipe for the cake can be found here and the bread is Jim Lahey’s (I coated the crust with thick cornmeal for extra crunchiness).

P.S. I’m kinda obsessed with bread making.

Adventures in Bread Making: Jim Lahey and a quick leftover sandwich

Ever since watching the Tartine Bread promotional video and stumbling upon the Tartine Bread Experiment blog, I’ve been dying to have another go at bread making at home and give working with yeast another chance. I still haven’t bought the book yet, but I have been hunting around the internet for some free recipes. Jim Lahey’s No Knead Bread recipe seems to be a very popular one, with FecalFace.com posting about it for some reason. (FecalFace is an art blog, I swear.)

This is only my second attempt (i and ii) and the results, so far, have been alright. I’m not quite sure what it is, it could be the flour I’m using or my kitchen itself or maybe even the oven, but my dough keeps turning out wetter than it should be and my attempts to compensate for it by adding more flour on my second try resulted in a very tough bread. (Adding extra flour required that I kneaded it a bit, so maybe that’s why it got tough?) I will try it with less water next time.

As Ink Remains had great looking results, so it’s not the recipe, it’s just me.

The sandwich was made using my day old Lahey bread. It had gotten tougher over night, but a quick pop in the toaster remedied that. The roasted chicken, using a rosemary and lime olive oil marinade, was also a leftover from the night before. And, of course, we all know a good sandwich is even better when topped with a fried egg.

More: Rosemary Foccacia Bread and Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread.