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Vulnerable Bread
I have a great recipe for no-knead bread that I make at home. It always makes the same kind of bread, which is soft, chewy, and delicious. The recipe is great for people who don't have a stand mixer, don't want to use one, or just want to thumb their nose at bread-making convention. It requires no kneading whatsoever, no pane-of-glass tests and no proofing. I just made some, so the memory of the recipe is fresh and it's very easy to replicate.
1) 812 grams of AP flour. This is 6 1/2 cups, but by weight and by gram, so you can keep it consistent. Keep the flour in a big pot, so it can rise. 2) 3 cups of water, brought to 110 degrees in the microwave 3) 1.5 tbsp salt, added to the flour and stirred in. 4) 1.5 tbsp active dry yeast. 5) 1 tbsp brown sugar or white sugar, added to the hot water. 6) 1 tbsp honey, added to the hot water.
Stir the sugar and honey into the 110 degree water, then add the yeast and stir them in. Set a timer for 7 minutes. This lets the yeast wake up. After this, pour the wet into the dry and stir until all the flour is dough, scrape the bottoms and the sides of the container.
Leave the pot on the counter for 5 hours, covered. Then after that put it in the fridge. The next day, get a spoon and carve out the dough you want to make into buscuits or loaves, cover in a dusting of AP flour and place on a baking surface, preferably with parchment paper underneath, that works best. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until the inside of the bread hits 200 degrees. Take out and cool.
Then what I did today for lunch was bake up a bit of the dough like this, then carved it into bite-sized pieces and then melted butter and drizzled on top. Fresh baked bread with warm butter soaked into it. Totally epic.
Oh, and there is gluten here. A LOT OF GLUTEN. But man is it delicious.
The dough can last in the fridge for a few days. If you need it to last longer you can hack it up and freeze it, or hack it up and wrap it up.
EDIT: One important thing I nearly forgot. The bread bakes really soft and delicious when covered with some sort of oil. Olive Oil, Butter, Sesame Oil, Peanut Oil, doesn't matter. A thin layer before baking and it comes out soft and chewy with a really thin flexible chewy crust.



Mmmm bread. This sounds like it would be delicious while still warm torn up and dipped into olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
(drools a little)
That too.
I love the aroma of baking. But we do so much baking of breads here that I've stopped using a recipe! You're right, a bit of oil is great for flavour and texture. It really helps to form a nice golden crust.
I've switched from dry yeast to fresh for all breads and donuts, though. I know there are people who believe there is absolutely no difference in flavour or rise between dry and fresh, but it's not my experience.
Maybe some can't taste the difference? I dunno. The baking aroma and taste is so markedly different for me. And the dough rises so much more swiftly; I hardly need to wait when in a hurry in the morning. So fail proof!
What a good idea to take to your office. Several loaves of homemade bread. That's called "Winner Winner".
I took your inspiration on this and carved up a dozen little biscuits this morning, used up the rest of the butter in the house as the oil part and baked them golden-brown-delicious. I brought them in along with some holiday cookies that we really need to get distributed. I haven't gotten any feedback yet, but I'm hopeful.