Kneadless Bread

The NY Times ran an article (select only) that shocked the baking world--alleging that you can make amazing bread without kneading.

We asked Rachael Coyle, former pastry chef at the Herb Farm, to test it out.

I teach classes for home bakers and while most believe it the task of educators to encourage others to reach their lofty goals--regarding bread, I am a stark realist. I tell people the cold, hard truth about crusty “european” bread: buy it at the bakery.

If you love bread, and crusty bread, as I do, it is simply too crushing to spend days on a loaf of bread only to have it reconfirmed that your oven is a woefully inadequate piece of crap. In my home kitchen and away from the professional accouterments to which I have become accustomed, I have been known to turn in to some kind of down-on-her luck diva, shouting: “I can’t work like this!” as I pull limp, crustless and naked loaves from my oven. (For the record, my friends happily devoured these loaves, but they don’t share my vision.)

So thus I gave up what I believed to be the impossible dream of baking crusty loaves at home.

Having heard this sad sad story, you can imagine my delight at coming across a piece in last Wednesday’s New York Times about a new method of bread baking employed by Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City.

Jim is a genius: not only does he not knead his bread, instead mixing a very wet dough that essentially kneads itself over time, but more importantly, he bakes his loaves inside of a dutch oven (large cast-iron pot with a lid), something that on a small scale replicates the moist environment--essential for crust development--of one of those expensive steam-injection ovens that I don’t have.

Making this bread is a quite easy, albeit lengthy, task. From start to finish the loaf takes about 18 hours, but fear not, your attention is required for only 20 minutes. In short: a thick batter-like dough is mixed up (no kneading) and allowed to rise for 12 or so hours. The loaf is then loosely shaped (again, no kneading), allowed to rise a second time and baked! In fact, the only stressful part of this entire project was flipping the shaped loaf off of a towel and into my preheated dutch oven. Alas, I had not adequately floured the towel, the dough stuck, I panicked.

But kitchen shears are a wonderful thing and only a few tears later, my loaf had been set free from the towel and was baking away.

This is where I’ll employ brevity: Lahey’s innovative process worked like a charm, producing an airy, complex loaf with a crispy and substantial crust.

Now I have to go--my bread just came out of the oven. I’m eating it right now. Slathered with butter and homemade gooseberry jam. Envy me-- or just look up the article and make the damn bread.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Seth in Food on November 22, 2006 8:50 AM

Comments [rss]

JasonTrue

I remember about 7 years ago a book "No Need To Knead" came out, which featured a bunch of recipes in this vein.

I tried out one of the recipes featured in a newspaper article at that time, and was pleasantly surprised. I tend to forget about this option, but occasionally I "retard" dough so that I'll have something suitable for later use, which is a key element in getting flavor out of breads and an essential feature of most of that book's recipes, as I recall.

I'm surprised that it's being called a "new" technique again, but all things are relative.

Matt the Engineer

Recipe here.

Ronald Holden

I made this bread last week. While the bread was rising, I went to find a cast-iron pot. Yeast was two years past its due-date, but still came out wonderfully dense and chewy, crisp on the outside, absolutely delicious. Making another one this morning; it will be ready for Thanksgiving dinner.

Jake of 8bitjoystick.com

My girlfriend has Celiac illness. That means that eating any gluten will send her to the hospital with extreme uncontrollable vomiting and pain. She can’t have any wheat flour and we have to basically bake just about anything from scratch or a GF baking mix. So I ended up learning how to bake a decent loaf of bread from potato flour and rice flour.