big no on the no-knead bread

I'm not loving the no-knead bread. I just can't get it to work. It just turns out flat and gummy. I baked this second attempt for 30 minutes over the suggested time and barely got it up to the 210 degrees F internal temperature. It has a nice crumb and it did make decent grilled (Pepperjack) cheese sandwiches, which is all I wanted it for. But I have to say, I'd much rather put in the work for a conventional kneaded bread and get more consistent results.

no-knead bread (again)

I started another batch of no-knead bread, this time a full loaf. I’m going to try baking it in the largish Corningware covered casserole dish Auntie brought over last weekend. Having just turned the dough (or slopping it, since it’s much too wet to really “turn”) I’m not feeling optimistic about the finished bread.

i hate pampered chef

I hate Pampered Chef. I hate Pampered Chef. I hate Pampered Chef. I am never going to buy anything from them again, nor am I going to one of their forsaken parties ever again.

My next baking stone is coming from the Baker’s Catalogue, as soon as they have a sale. This old stone is going in the trash; I'm done with paying for return shipping to replace it with another stone (that will break).

baking powder biscuits

We were having leftover chili last night and instead of buying my customary refrigerated biscuit dough in a can, or even using the ubiquitous buttermilk pancake mix that’s in our fridge, I decided I’d try making biscuits myself. I didn’t have the ingredients (shortening, heavy cream, etc.) that a lot of biscuit recipes called for, but I found this recipe on the King Arthur Flour site.

They looked great – I followed the instructions for the cut biscuits, folding the dough into thirds and cut the dough into squares (I don’t have a biscuit cutter and I don’t really like the look of dropped biscuits). The boys, young, older and adult, liked them well enough (although C. said they were too crispy) but I found them rather coarse and hard. In the future, I might try pastry flour instead and add the maximum amount of butter (this time I used the middle range – 5 tablespoons).

no-knead bread

I had long wanted to try making No-Knead Bread. All accounts said it was foolproof and easy, and consistently generated great bread. However, you needed a piece of equipment I did not have, which was a 5-quart cast iron dutch oven (or some other similarly sized pot that was heat-proof to 450 degrees F). Buying a new (somewhat costly) piece for a single untested recipe was not in my budget so I spent a lot of time investigating cheaper options, such as budget cast iron, pyrex and anodized aluminum pots, but I never ended up buying anything.

Yesterday, P’s aunt gave me a piece of enameled Dansk Bistroware – a 2 ½ quart casserole that I thought might be suitable. So I set to work making the dough. I halved the recipe to account for the smaller sized piece (I had read where others had done this with no problem). However, the dough didn’t really behave as the recipe said it would, and I’m not accustomed to working with such wet slack dough. There was absolutely no “[nudging] it into a ball shape.” It was a puddle of wet yeasty goo. It looked great, but stuck horribly to the floured towel, and deflated completely when the time came to transfer it to the preheated dish. The finished bread was just a flat (but pleasingly crispy) gummy (no matter how long I cooked it, I couldn’t get the inside temp above 205 degrees) hockey puck. Argh.