never made bread before....

FairyPrincessk

Ah--yes, must be the instructions. I think our ovens might be related, Honeythief. Mine is a right monster--I swear it is secretly a dragon and breathes fire on whatever I put in its mouth as soon as I run upstairs or answer the door etc.

I'll try 200 tonight based on the oven thermometer and see where that gets me. Even OH, who usually things one possible recipe failure=give up thought this was good enough to give it some tweaking!

asparagus1968

well, batch one yesterday- it didn't double in size,it didn't change size at all!

batch two-just tried a piece after cooling-yummy! am hoping it's nice all the way through and not doughy.

haven't got a container big enough to put it in (made a loaf, not buns) so will just keep it wrapped in a tea towel.

FairyPrincessk

I keep my bread in the equivalent of a tea towel. I have one with a loop on one corner and a button on the other so it stays wrapped up--it never lasts long enough to go stale!

Honeythief

Bread doesn't last long enough to go stale here either!

This evening I baked the pesto bread dough I made overnight. Divided the dough between two loaf tins. It was baked at [what I call] 200c for 35 minutes. It is perfect - nicely risen, crispy almost flaky crust, and soft light insides.

That no-knead fridge bread is my new favourite thing. Our bread machine may never be used again!

FairyPrincessk

Unfortunately OH beat me to the baking yesterday. I'd cut the recipe by a third to fit the bowl I have and he'd lopped the entire thing into my 500gr. bread loaf. It baked forever at 200 (at least an hour) but never actually got done in the middle. I'm going to try small rolls next as I often struggle with the volume of this pan in this particular oven (it was fine in my last ove:mad:)

Honeythief

How frustrating. I'm sure you'll crack the winning combination soon, though, so don't give up!

asparagus1968

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

I keep my bread in the equivalent of a tea towel. I have one with a loop on one corner and a button on the other so it stays wrapped up--it never lasts long enough to go stale!

that sounds like my hair drying towel....:rotfl:

FairyPrincessk

:rotfl: I have one of those--eerily similar now that I think about it. The kitchen version is referred to by me as my "hobo" cloth.:p

Honeythief

Here is another no-knead recipe that I tried tonight (although I didn't bake mine in a casserole, just in an ordinary loaf pan):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

It came out so delicous! I made up the dough last night and left it on the counter to rise all night and all day while I was at work, then did the final resting and rising tonight before baking. It is definitely a slow process, although it involves almost no actual work. But the bread is so good! It tastes like bakery bread.

I don't know which I prefer, this or the no-knead fridge bread I posted earlier in this thread, but it's great to have them both in my repertoire

How are you other bread bakers getting on?

FairyPrincessk

I've got a lot on at the moment, mentally, if not organisationally so I've taken a break from the no knead for a bit. I'll probably knock up a couple of loaves of my normal two rise bread over the weekend and give the fridge bread another go after Easter when things settle down again. Sometimes I find what is needed with bread is a bit of a break and then it just works the next time--this has happened to me twice--I actually took almost a year off of my normal bread when I go so frustrated with its poor texture. When I came back to it it was practically perfect in every way. I suspect bread can feel stress!!! Or maybe I'm just superstitious!