Best Bread Ever (and Butternut Squash Soup)

This is quite possibly the best homemade bread recipe, ever.

I think I would be able to sell this in the Cambridge market square.

In 2006, Mark Bitmann aka The Minimalist of the New York Times published a recipe for No Knead Bread by master baker Jim Lahey. Apparently it created an enormous amount of hype amongst foodbloggers worldwide...

So I may be 6 years late to the party, but now it's my turn to jump on the No Knead bandwagon. This recipe is amazing! I love the fact that the method is so simple, the ingredients don't have to be weighed out precisely, and most of all, the end product looks and tastes so good.

Since it's been documented everywhere, I'll be brief with the recipe. For more details, check out the original article here, the video here, and the ever so slight modification that I used here.

No Knead Bread

Ingredients:
3 cups flour (I used bread flour - it has a high protein content)
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 tsp regular instant yeast
1 tsp salt

1. Add flour, yeast and salt to a bowl and give it a swirl to mix. Add the water and mix until roughly combined. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 12-18 hrs.
It will look like a shaggy mess - this is fine.

2. At this stage, the mixture will have grown and be very soft and bubbly. Move onto a floured surface and bring the edges into the centre. Flip over onto a floured cotton towel (so that the side with the gathered folds is at the bottom). Place towel with dough into a bowl and let rest for 2 hrs.

3. After waiting 1.5 hrs, place a heavy pot into the oven and heat to 220-230 deg C. When the 2 hr rise is over, throw the dough from the towel into the superhot pot, (hopefully the folded side will now be back on top). Immediately put the lid on the pot and put back in oven for 30 mins. After that, take the lid off and bake for another 15 mins or until browned nicely.

In summary, you dump stuff in a bowl, leave it, leave it some more, dump it into a pot and bake it. Done. How much easier could it be? I've decided to make this bread on a fortnightly basis at least, starting the dough on Saturday night, and baking on Sunday night so that I have fresh bread for the start of the working week!

Whilst I'm at it, here's a recipe for butternut squash soup we made the other day:

Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients:
2 medium-sized butternut squash
2 carrots and 2 onions chopped finely
300 mL double cream
1 chicken stock cube
random herb/spice assortment: nutmeg, sage, thyme (salt and pepper)

Fry carrots and onions in olive oil and/or butter over medium heat until soft. Then add chopped chunks of the squash, together with the nutmeg, sage and thyme. Fry for 10 mins or so, until the squash starts to soften.

Add enough water to just about cover the squash pieces, throw in the stock cube and boil for 30-40 mins or until squash is soft.

Blend the whole mixture with a stick blender, then mix in the cream. Salt/pepper to taste. Serve topped with some cracked black pepper and a bit of cream, or with some freshly baked bread!

-----

First blog post in months - finally found the motivation thanks to this bread. I've been bread crazy lately... feels more like biochemistry than normal cooking, with all the talk about % hydration and gluten. So many interesting factors, actually it might be more like methodology, optimising a reaction. Speaking of optimising, I still haven't nailed Focaccia Pugliese despite several attempts. I think I have to increase the hydration significantly.

Hope you're all well!