Tag Archives: no knead bread

Maple oat breakfast bread

Maple Oat Breakfast Bread

This recipe had me at maple. I’m a simple person really. But maple syrup, oats and melted butter all cozied up into a crusty loaf of bread (that requires minimal effort and even less skill to make) would win over even the most complex of characters. There is no more appropriate time to celebrate maple syrup than on Vermont Town Meeting Day, the traditional time to tap one’s maple trees. It also happens to be when everyone needs a little comfort food to push through the final sub-zero throes of winter.

This comes from the “no knead” family of bread recipes, which, as you can imagine, is the only bread family in my recipe box. The no knead process is very easy but does require a few things, namely time (not work time, just hang time for the dough), a heavy duty cooking crock and a really hot oven. The perfect scenario is to take 5 minutes and mix all the ingredients at night then bake up a fresh loaf in the morning. Second to that is mixing the dough in the morning and baking it up for dinner. Either way, you’ll have plenty of time to get out there to the town hall and vote on wind farms, beaver dams and moose quotas.

Recipe tweaked from King Arthur Flour via Food52

Makes 1 large loaf

Ingredients

5 cups all-purpose flour (you can replace a couple cups with whole wheat if you wish)
11/2 cups rolled oats
1/3 cup maple syrup (preferably grade B)
1/4 cup melted butter or olive oil
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp instant yeast
2 1/4 cups room temperature water

Method

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and stir well until it becomes a tacky, messy dough. (You can also use your hands to work everything together.)

2. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature) until poofed and bubbly, 8 hours or overnight.

3. Gently scrape the dough out onto a well floured surface and shape into a round loaf. Place the loaf on a well floured towel and allow to sit for an hour.

4. In the meantime preheat your oven to 450F with a 10-inch (about 8-quart) Dutch oven or baking crock with lid in it. When the dough is ready and the oven is hot, turn the dough off of the towel into the hot Dutch oven and cover with the lid. Bake covered for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and continue to bake until the crust is deep brown, another 15-30 minutes.

5. Remove the bread from the oven, turn it out of the pot and allow to cool completely before slicing.

Maple oat breakfast bread

A fine lunch on a sunny late winter day.

Easiest French Bread Ever

RED ALERT NOTE! This was originally published with the wrong flour measurement. It is corrected here, and please accept my sincere apologies for the gluteny messes that ensued from mistake.  I owe y’all some bread flour!

The title says it all. If you are intimidated by the thought of making bread, but you really like the idea of busting out homemade bread, start here! It is a no knead bread that takes way less time than other bread recipes, and, like the very best friends, is totally low maintenance. You can cut the second rise time,  leave it in the loaf pans way too long, manhandle it into the unruliest looking loaves imaginable and it still turns out tasty. And whose going to complain about looks when you bring fresh bread? That’s right–nobody!

Ingredients:

  • 6 cups bread flour
  • 1 Tbsp EACH sugar, salt (a little less) and instant yeast
  • 3 cups warm water

Method:

Mix in large bowl—it will be wet enough that you only have to use a wooden spoon.  Mix until [wet] ball forms. Don’t waste time over mixing and do not knead.  Cover with towel and let rise about 1 1/2 hours.

rising-dough-french-breadDough is risen and ready to be punched/shaped.

 

French-loaves-rising 

Very imperfect loaves rising in their pan

Sprinkle dough liberally with more flour. Punch down and divide the mass in ball-like halves. It’ll still be wet and will get your hands goopy. Grab one ball at a time and pull/shape/plop it onto a French bread loaf pan coated with non-stick spray (or give the ozone layer a break and just wipe it with some vegetable oil. Let loaves rise about another hour. If it overflows just fold the overflow back over the loaf. * Trust the process. It’ll be fine, though you may have funky shaped loaves the first few times.

French-bread-baked

Golden and delicious. Turn your back and there’s already a piece missing.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Bake about 20 minutes or until it’s deep golden brown. Let cool in pan and then gently pry it out with a small spatula or metal frosting spreader.

As mentioned above some of us have fudged the timing mightily— roughly wrestled over-risen loaves back in their place; cooked it too long or brought it partially baked and finished it by warming it at the place we are visiting. It’s always a hit. The only must is that you get the French or Italian bread pan. It’s a $20 investment that will change your life…or somebody else’s life if you give them a pan along with a freshly baked loaf. Mmmmmm–Good idea!

*At this point if you realize your math was off and what were you thinking–pick-up is in an hour!– just pop the pan in the fridge and come back to it.

Bring it!

Make it a double gift by bringing it in its own loaf pan (see above), or wrap it in a nice dishtowel and wedge it into the bag of whatever else is making the trip.