excellent no-knead olive rosemary bread

I thought an olive rosemary bread would be nice for Christmas Eve so I looked back over some previous efforts. (Hey, a year into this blogging business and it gratifying to find that it's as helpful a reference as I'd hoped.)

This almost no-knead loaf using the Cooks Illustrated method was great aside from the flattish shape. I went with something close to it, but drier in keeping with the original CI recipe:

• 3 cups all purpose flour less 3 tablespoons
• 3 tablespoons wheat gluten
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
  
• rounded 1/4 teaspoon rapid rise yeast
• 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon goldenflower ale (homemade)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (homemade)
• 1/2 cup chopped kalamata olives
• 1 tablespoon dried rosemary, lightly crushed
  

Mixed this into a shaggy ball and covered at 13:00. Kneaded for 30 seconds at 8:30 the next morning, formed into a loaf, and put it onto parchment paper in a small skillet. It was easy to work and very resilient. Looked promising, though I should have used more flour to get a smoother exterior and permit more symmetric shaping. I was thinking that this one would be, shall we say, rustic.

It rose well over the next two hours, then went into the covered dutch oven preheated on the bottom rack to 500 degrees. Lowered to 425 and baked for 30 minutes covered and 20 uncovered to 206 degrees internal.

Holy guacamole señors y señoritas, it's gorgeous. I can see that the technique of forming the loaf by pulling the dough from several directions into the middle and then using that seam as the base worked perfectly. That has been too difficult to do with other no-knead doughs. Letting it rise in a smaller skillet also worked well. And it bounced or sprang or whatever you call it in the oven better than any other bread I've baked.

Now, two hours of sweet torment listening to it softly crackle into coolness.

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

It's superb. This is the closest thing to perfection to ever come out of my oven. The crust is spectacularly flaky and crisp, the crumb is chewy and stretchy and soft, and the flavor is heavenly. I'm about to dislocate one shoulder patting myself on the back and the other lunging for another piece.

I can tell that I used dried rosemary. There's no textural problem, but the flavor is clearly that of the dried herb. I'll use fresh next time. I wouldn't mind more olives, either.

Other than that I don't know how it could be any better. Well, I suppose it could be, but I am totally satisfied with this outcome. Outstanding ROI. I'll probably make another.

almost no-knead olive rosemary bread

After Tracey brought home a loaf of the really great Calamata Olive Toscano bread (so soft and chewy and complex) from Borracchini's Bakery I decided that I'd bake a modification of the January & February 2008 Cook's Illustrated almost no-knead modification of the Sullivan Street Bakery no-knead bread.

The Cook's Illustrated article is informative, digging a bit into the chemistry of the no-knead recipe in an attempt to preserve its easiness and structure while improving the flavor. Briefly, the highly hydrated (85%) dough and long rest promotes extremely effective autolysis, which greatly reduces the amount of kneading required to align the proteins. It can even reduce it to zero because the proteins may have been snipped into such small bits by the enzymes in the wheat that there's no manual disentangling required. This is responsible for the great crumb. However, the tiny amount of yeast is not a satisfying flavor substitute for the complexity of a fermented starter. A small amount of acetic acid in the form of vinegar can substitute for that tangy fermentation byproduct, and a lager beer can provide yeasty complexity. The difficulty with such a wet dough is its delicacy, though, making it hard to handle without deflating and results inconsistent. A less wet and more forgiving dough can be used if a small amount of kneading (even 15 seconds!) is used to develop the structure.

As I didn't have any suitable beer on hand I had to purchase Budweiser at the grocery store, where Isaac and I ran into his substitute teacher for the day. I was grateful that she didn't offer me a Slim Jim or dip of Skoal when she saw the Bud. I felt a little better after getting it home and decanting into a Terminator Stout glass.

I suppose for my first attempt I should have stuck with the basic recipe, but since I had whey on hand from the recent farmer cheese making I figured I'd use that instead of water. And I had the olive and rosemary idea in my head, so I went in that direction too. The ingredients ended up being:

• 15 ounces (3 cups) all-purpose unbleached flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon rapid rise yeast
• 7 fluid ounces whey
• 3 fluid ounces Budweiser
• 1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
• 1/2 cup chopped kalamata olives

Dry ingredients and rosemary were whisked, liquids and olives at room temperature were added, and mixed into a rough ball. This ended up being pretty wet, probably because of the moist olives and I think I may have had a touch too much liquid.

It rose well overnight (oven light, door ajar) but was very fragile, rippling provocatively when I agitated the bowl. If I'd been thinking I would have skipped the kneading entirely, but instead I gave it a try.

It sighed audibly and had lost much of its volume by the time I was done abusing it. It was much too sticky and soft to retain much form so the "shaping" of the "loaf" was a rather abstract exercise. It rose for another two hours, regaining much of its volume but remained flat.

Slicing (gashing) the top made it very clear that I need to sharpen my knives.

I preheated the dutch oven for 30 minutes at 500 degrees, dropped in the dough, lowered to 425, and baked for 30. Smelled fantastic within 20 minutes and looked great at 30 when I removed the lid.

It was done in another 20, at 208 degrees internally and sounding nice and hollow when knocked. It was a little squatter than I would have liked but still exceeded my expectations.

As for the most important thing: Wow! Tremendous success! Aside from wishing that it were taller I couldn't be much more pleased. Texture is excellent and flavors are great. It's by far the best bread I've baked. The boys loved it, even preferring it to the Borracchini's bread.

I think that the Borracchini loaf has considerably more complexity its flavors, but I would happily eat this bread any time.

Next time I will ensure that the dough is drier so I can administer a proper kneading and shaping. I'll bet that will produce a rounder loaf, though I'm not sure how the texture could be improved. This is really nice: Soft, stretchy, great glutinous bubbles and sheets, and crackly but not rock-hard crust.

2009-12-23 update: Best results to date using roughly this method are written up here.

no-knead olive rosemary pan bread

I attempted the no-knead no-transfer experiment with an olive rosemary bread. Liquid was eight ounces of beer, two tablespoons of vinegar, and the water used for proofing two packets of yeast with sugar. I took the salt down to a teaspoon and a half. It was a wet dough and looked small in the big dutch oven.

After rising for two hours in the oven with the light on (and door closed) it was quite gaseously immense. I left the door cracked after this.

By morning I think the waves of dough had receded a bit.

I set the oven for 500 with the dough inside, and baked for 30 minutes covered. That is, no preheating of anything. It clearly contracted during this time.

It baked for another 20 uncovered. The decrease in size was significant.

So I ended up being disappointed that the volume was not retained. For whatever reason, the structure is just not quite there. I wonder if there's any way to end up with something as pillowy as it was after the first two hours.

However, the bread was pretty darn good. The crust wasn't quite as flavorful as what I've had using a preheated dutch oven, but it was still very tasty. The "bread finger" form factor is kind of fun, and since the crust is decent it's nice to get it in every bite. The crumb was soft and stretchy. Everyone liked it.

I'd use more rosemary next time. This had perhaps a little more than a tablespoon.

recent breads: sourdough, olive rosemary

I made the basic no-knead sourdough in the oval casserole. Turned out fine, and pretty much what I've come to expect from the recipe. A single deep slash opened pretty dramatically.

I wanted to see what a no-knead sourdough does when given quite a bit of kneading. I made a dough of 3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons wheat gluten, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 cup starter, and 1 cup water. I kneaded this in a mixing bowl for 10 minutes or so, rendering it quite stretchy, still pretty sticky, and fairly smooth though not silken. Left to rise overnight atop the fridge.

Kneaded for a few minutes on a cutting board in the morning. Stretchy and stickier, it seems. Did not get a great rise. I decided to bake it in a loaf pan just to see what it would do. Nothing unexpected, I suppose. It was decent, though fairly dense, and this is too much salt. Kneading was sufficiently difficult due to the stickiness that I probably didn't perform it adequately. The crust was pallid and uninteresting. Didn't take a photo.

Another olive rosemary bread seemed in order. I kind of winged this one, varying from that recipe by using 10 ounces of water and two tablespoons of vinegar as the liquid, probably close to a cup of chopped kalamatas, a tablespoon of salt, and three tablespoons of wheat gluten. I was curious to see what would happen if I used two packets of yeast, too. I proofed them with a bit of sugar, as they were a couple of years old, but it was plenty active. The dough was not extremely wet and I kneaded it for something less than 10 minutes. It must have quadrupled in size while rising in the oven overnight. Most of that volume was lost as I gently poured it into the casserole. I let it rise for a couple more hours.

I've been pretty happy with the results from the casserole. The lid was preheated in this case, but not the dish itself. Baked at 450 for 20 minutes with the lid on and 25 with it off.

The crust was good but not great. Overall it was fine, but not as good as the last no-knead attempt using beer, either in flavor or texture. Too salty, too; I'm not sure why I thought a tablespoon was appropriate, especially since the olives are somewhat salty.

The three shallow slashes seemed to perform well.

I'm curious to see what happens if I double the yeast and let it rise in a way that lets me transfer it into a preheated dutch oven without losing so much volume. Would the loaf really turn out that large and light? The easy way to try that would be to not worry about the preheating and just let it rise in the dutch oven itself.

I didn't find much online about using extra yeast. I think there was one article that mentioned that a yeastier flavor could be achieved, and that was about it.