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No-knead bread, egg style

UnConundrum
UnConundrum Posts: 536
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
About 18 months ago, my son paid my tuition to a professional baking class offered by the King Arthur folks for my birthday. (You can find out more about the classes here.) The course on professional bread baking was presented by Jeffrey Hamelman with a guest appearance of James MacGuire, a world class baker from Montreal, and translator of The Taste of Bread by Raymond Calvel (you can buy this book here). [p]Towards the end of the class, James shared with us his research into early bread baking, and the observation that our ancestors didn't have big mixing machines to make bread with, nor did they have the time and energy to knead every loaf when they were baking for a village. He developed a theory and process where the bread could be mixed by hand, and allowed to ferment without kneading, while still developing a very good quality bread.[p]I've been making my bread this way, ever since, with wonderful results. I decided to take some pictures today, baking the bread on my Egg. I put the inverted plate-setter in first, with a pan on top, the grate on top of that, and finally my pizza stone. [p]

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[p]To develop a good crust, bread needs steam. That's what the pan is for. I got the egg up to 500 and let everything warm up inside. Then I poured some water into the pan, and put the dough on the pizza stone. [p]
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[p]Let it bake for about 20 minutes, and here's the results :)

436.png[p]
If you want the recipe, you can find it, and more step by step pictures here. I would suggest making only half a recipe as the dough will overproof while you're waiting the the first loaves to bake.

Comments

  • AZRP
    AZRP Posts: 10,116
    UnConundrum,
    Man that bread looks good! -RP

  • UnConundrum
    UnConundrum Posts: 536
    AZRP,
    Thanks, tasted great too ;)

  • UnConundrum, looks great. Now I gotta go figure out how much water is in 1.6 pounds, how much salt is in 17.9 grams of salt, and how much yeast is in 2.9 grams of yeast. :-)

  • UnConundrum
    UnConundrum Posts: 536
    Chuck/Tx,[p]Well, let's see. A gallon of water is 8.35 pounds, 1.6/8.35 =
    .19 gallons. There are 16 cups in a gallon, so that'a just a little over 3 cups of water.[p]The salt is harder.... If I remember right, there's 28.35 grams in an ounce, so that's about half an ounce. I use super fine salt, and it's 2 slightly rounded (not heaping) teaspoons full.[p]The yeast is instant yeast, and about one package.[p]I use the weights because they are far more accurate, especially if you're expanding or reducing a recipe.[p]Hope you enjoy :)

  • UnConundrum, well thank you very much. I'll use these measurements and see spend some time in the kitchen -- and on the egg.

  • UnConundrum,
    First, your bread was absolutely beautiful! Please explain the inverted platesetter. I do not fully understand how you set up the BGE

  • UnConundrum
    UnConundrum Posts: 536
    Charla Abbott,
    An inverted place-setter is a place-setter put in the egg with the "feet" up. So the flat part is down do diffuse te heat, and hold the pan for the water. The feet support the grate which in turn holds the pizza stone.

  • BrianP
    BrianP Posts: 147
    UnConundrum,
    This looks pretty neat. What's the consistency of the bread like? Kinda like French bread?[p]thanks,
    Brian

  • BrianP,
    Correct. Actually, the recipe is designed for baguettes, a very open crumb, lots of holes :) If you cut it open, the sides of the holes will glisten like they should :) We've done some comparisons, and very few bakeries will make a bread as good as this one, if done correctly. Most use a mix or frozen dough these days..... some go from scratch, but don't really pay attention to the details, and are driven by the work schedule and not the needs of the dough.... In the recipe, we give the dough plenty of time to develop flavor. The crust will be controlled by how long you leave it in the egg and the amount of steam you're able to generate early in the baking. You want this crust to be towards the darker side so the dough caramelizes somewhat for that flavor.

  • GrillMeister
    GrillMeister Posts: 1,608
    UnConundrum,[p]Those folks at King Arthur are great. My wife and I went to a free seminar a few years ago and the info was great.[p]Great flour too! Thanks for the post and recipe.[p]cheers,[p]GM

    Cheers,

    GrillMeister
    Austin, Texas
  • BrianP
    BrianP Posts: 147
    Warren H. Prince,
    This sounds great - I'm definitely going to try this. Tell me, where do you place it in the oven? Bottom rack, middle, etc.?[p]Brian

  • UnConundrum
    UnConundrum Posts: 536
    Brian,
    You can check my reply to Charla here or instruction 20 in the recipe, here.[p]In short.... because of all the "stuff" I use to spread the heat and generate the steam, you're pretty much even with the gasket....

  • BrianP
    BrianP Posts: 147
    UnConundrum,
    Thanks. The Egg I understand. My question was - if I want to use my kitchen oven, where would you position the bread.[p]thanks,
    Brian

  • UnConundrum
    UnConundrum Posts: 536
    BrianP,
    LOL, sorry about that... I would say middle.... And you'd want some kind of stone to bake it on...

  • BrianP
    BrianP Posts: 147
    UnConundrum,
    Thanks - if I can escape yard work this weekend, I'm going to give it a try.[p]Brian