Bread and circuses (Disclaimer: circuses not included)

Bread is basically magic.  Flour is by far the most boring of the white powdery substances and yet when a breadmaker weaves the dark rituals of the baker's art it turns into one of mankind's true marvels.    Intuitively we know that traditional bread recipes include just four things: flour, water, yeast and salt. Now, don't get me wrong, yeast is a pretty cool guy (eh kills himself to make booze and doesn't afraid of anything!), but don't we all suspect deep down that to get a real golden-crusted loaf with a pillowy delicious centre you have to sell your soul? Nothing that smells that good could come without eternal damnation.

OK, so that got a bit purple.  Maybe I should just write about what I did.  I found a guy who said you could make amazing bread in a home oven without hours spent kneading or a fancy stand mixer to do it for you.  That guy is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU.  Then on looking into it a bit more I discovered a post on the same topic by a scientifically-minded foodblogger I've read before (and recommend!): http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/06/the-food-lab-the-science-of-no-knead-dough.html.  This seemed like a thing which could be done! It would take several days, but the actual effort involved was very minimal.

It starts with mixing 100 parts flour to 1.5 parts salt, 1 part instant yeast and 70 parts room-temp water. Ratios are apparently relatively important here. I made a small test roll which served two as a side with 150gr of flour.  Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly and then add the water, and do this in a bowl with plenty of room for it to rise. Once there's no dry flour cover it with cling wrap and walk away.  Leave it on the kitchen bench for 12-24 hours. Then put it in the fridge for 2-3 days.

Here's mine at this stage! Pour/scoop the sloppy wet muck onto a floured surface. Fold it a few times (OK, so there's not *no* kneading in this recipe) then shape it into whatever end shape you want (I stretched it out into a rough oval then folded the ends back onto themselves). Leave it to proof for 2-4 hours. You could also slash the top a bit after shaping if you wanted that cool artisanal look.

Now, at this point it's almost four days after we decided to make bread, and that's pretty crazy, but the actual effort required was to just measure and mix some stuff then leave it around for a while, then flop it out on the counter and spend two minutes pushing it around.

Pre-heat your oven to ALL THE DEGREES for at least 15 minutes with a large heavy-lidded pot inside - obviously you need an oven-proof pot of some kind for this, the recipes suggest a dutch oven, but I just used a metal-handled saucepan.  Once it's hot enough to melt small mammals, quickly AND CAREFULLY remove the pot lid, drop the doughblob into the bottom (don't worry, it won't stick), lid it up and get it back inside. Don't be an idiot like me and absent-mindedly grab the pot lid without your oven mitt even after repeatedly warning yourself to be careful.  Burns suck.

Bake for about 20 mins then remove the lid AGAIN CAREFULLY and bake for another 30 mins or so - it'll be golden brown coloured when it's done. Mine was pretty small so it took about 25. Let it cool for at least another 15 mins so the inside finishes setting. The result:

The reason for the sealed container within the oven is twofold - omnidirectional even heat and humidity.  Apparently real bakers' ovens are steam injected. This recipe uses a very high-water-content dough and a lidded vessel to get things hot and steamy - the telltale sign of this is tiny blisters on the crust, something like this:

Pure Maillardy magnificence. I think I've got a bit more experimentation to do here - this didn't rise as much as I expected and was a bit dense.  It rose on the counter, then fell in the fridge and never recovered during the proof.  It's possible our fridge is too cold (it's a shitty fridge that occasionally makes things ice over).  I also chickened out and only put the oven at about 200 rather than its theoretical max of 250 because the saucepan I was using said "oven proof up to 250", so maybe that was it.  The flavour and texture was amazing, though, like a cross between a chewy sourdough roll and turkish bread. I'm also not sure how much of the 2-3 days in the fridge was really necessary - the internet tells me it's to develop more flavour. More science is to be done!