Novice Home Baker Series: No Knead Bread

This is my 3rd attempt at trying this seemingly-easy no-knead bread but I haven't been successful so far. Well, the verdict for the third one is still up as it is still in the oven right now.

I first tried this when I first got a medium-sized ceramic pot but it didn't go well. The pot was too small and the bread didn't rise quite well. I had to forgo this bread for a while.

Late last year, when I was able to score a decent Lodge Dutch oven but it was too big for my old oven. Now that I have a newer and bigger I oven, I determined to give it another try. The thing is, I forgot that the Dutch oven won't fit with the lid on. I have to improvise with the flexible foil and I'm waiting how it will turn out.

My second attempt was yesterday but it didn't rise well I think so I had to "rescue" the dough and turned it into bahn-mi bread instead. I had to add more yeast, flour, and water but it turned out good enough for my son to consume. :D

The Dutch oven is still waiting to be used so I tried another attempt and mixed the dough. I used a recipe from Jenny Can Cook but she mixes the yeast with flour which I did the first time. I wasn't sure if I killed the yeast with the hot water but I had to make sure that the yeast is alive and "kicking" this time. I mixed it with the water first to see. It might not be how it was done from the recipe but there's a way around it. And it did rise beautifully!

I mixed it all up and let it rise for at least three hours. Fortunately, it went up to the rim of my wide yellow aluminum bowl. Then, I put it on a lightly floured surface as per instructions to fold it over a few times before moving it again into the smaller glass bowl for another 35-minute rise. It is a no-knead bread but it still needed to rise twice. Oh, well. That is a yeast bread, indeed.

Now comes the tricky part of putting the parchment bottomed dough in the HOT pot. The pot is big and hot. The lid doesn't fit. Boy! This seemed to be a complicated first time in baking this simple bread.

I've just removed the foil from the top and it looks promising. It rose beautifully but I have yet to see it browned well not to mention if it's totally baked. Chances are it will be baked, yes. I mean, even if I set the temperature at 230 instead of 235 C, there should be enough heat from the oven to the pot to bake it.

Fifteen minutes. I am just waiting for it now to see the final result of this 3rd attempt.

10 minutes later:
                                          

It browned well and a little bit on the bottom since I forgot to remove the paper for the last 15 minutes. I still need to wait a few more minutes for it to cool and hopefully, it is well-baked as well.

6PM

Waiting...( I'm tempted to put it out in the "veranda" to cool it faster in this winter cold of Korea.)

Talking Clocks

Either you hate or love it.

"Talking clocks are the worst ever invention of humanity," says my son.
Haha!

I'm on the opposite side of that! I like talking clocks especially when I am in the middle of doing something that I literally lose track of time. I needed to hear the clock to set my brain to hurry up more or adjust my tasks. For example, it is very useful to hear how many minutes I had been in the shower or how many minutes I should need to get dress.

Looking back to a couple of decades ago, my father got a wall clock that plays a song every hour. We know what time it is whenever we hear a specific tune. But now, it's not just by the hours. No music, yes, but a voice that gives the time on how frequent you want to set it. Some have the option by minute, five, 15, 30 minutes or an hour.

It's pretty cool to use it nowadays, be it online or on the phone. My favorite online one is online-stopwatch.com. It has a lot of different clocks, alarms, timers that I can use but my go-to is the talking clock. I can set the frequency and hear the time as I set it.

Then there's the talking clock app on an android phone. I missed this one when had an iPhone but happy to find it when I went back to an android one. This is pretty basic: gives the time as I set it and can also change the voice into male or female. I usually run the app when I'm in the bathroom or when I am heading out somewhere.

Now that I have a bluetooth speaker, which I got for free from a phone center over the change of year, it will be more fab to have it running in the bathroom while I wash and get ready before heading out. It beats the Alexa speaker that my husband got last December. Now, that might be for another post.

For now, I am happy with the existence of talking clocks online when I'm on my laptop or on my phone when I'm out and about.

Baking Bliss (voice-to-text on Google but total fail)

I like baking. I think I've been using the oven at least twice a week lately.

I usually bake two batches of bread in a week: at least one in the weekend

and another one sometime during the weekdays. Since I usually bake yeast bread,

it spoils faster and can only last for 3 to 4 days. It’s either because of that or it's all been consumed or eaten. My son eats it for breakfast and sometimes snacks as well.   

We rarely buy bread ever since I got the oven coupled with the time to bake.  Sometimes, I would still buy some bread on a whim or when I don't have time to prepare something for breakfast the next day.  But it seldom happens nowadays. It's either homemade bread or cereal for breakfast. And when I buy bread, I would usually go for the Roman wheat bread with nuts and stuff. Or I would pick up some sweet bread when I feel like eating one but don't want to be troubled to use of all of those butter. I do feel guilty when I see how much sugar and butter go into those bread. So in the spirit of “ignorance is bliss,” I just trying to buy a bit of this and that just to satisfy my cravings with lesser guilt.

I usually bake a loaf of bread or Pinoy bread rolls. Most of these, if not all, have yeast, water, oil, bread, and sugar --- just the basic ones for baking. It doesn't even need oil sometimes which is quite surprising. Sometimes, I would also try quick bread that uses baking soda or baking powder instead of yeast. These would usually be a muffin, some rolled bread or a cookie. Quick bread usually needs more sugar and maybe even butter so I tend to baked things like that rarely. Not only that it's not healthy with all the sugar and butter it needs, but it's also expensive because of the butter so I seldom bake sweet quick bread.

I found myself baking and kneading quite often nowadays and I feel like kneading by hand takes so much time for me that I really wish that I have a stand mixer. I mean, I like the kneading part especially if I am watching something interesting that I would hardly notice the time passing while my hands are busy but “people” in the house are complaining how much time I spend baking. Don’t they know….? They clearly have no idea!

Now, I really wish to be able to buy that stand mixer! 180k grand. I need to save up for that first after I’ve paid my husband for my car. Yes, that was the deal. Instead of me being able to send my annual savings to put in some funds and stocks, I will have to shell it out for the car this year.

My big ticket purchases last year, aside from the trip home and the car, were the oven, Lodge cast iron skillet, Dutch oven, and a Pyrex loaf pan. I still have to complete the car thing with some car tire changes and brake pads sometime until the middle of this year, I hope.

Going back to baking. I will get a stand mixer this year. I’ll have to keep an eye on some sale soon. It will fall into place. :)

(composed using Google docs voice typing tool, Gradeproof add-on, and good old manual editing)