Knead A Little Comfort in These Trying Times? (King Arthur Flour No-Knead Bread)
Hi everyone! Hope you are all staying sane out there sheltering in place! It is me, Jamie, your favorite blogger. As I am clearly the superior baker in our family, I have decided to grace your feeds with a quick lil’ post about my latest baking passion:
BREAD
Now, I know what you are thinking: “bread is the last thing I should bake if I am stuck at home all day with nothing to do except move my mouse around my work computer every five minutes” WRONG. Sorry, I should not invalidate your feelings, but let me tell you why your feelings are misguided and sad.
The smell of baking bread will 100% make your home much homier.
Picture this: You are in hour 2 of a 3 hour pointless meeting, and Karen is going on and on about whether or not you are considered “business critical” (newsflash, you probably aren’t if Karen can take up 3 hours of your time to talk about nothing). You are sitting at your uncomfortable kitchen table, hunched over because it is NOT ergonomically sound, with the smell of Clorox and lemon encroaching into your six feet of space. Not fun, right? Actually, the exact opposite of fun.
Now, picture this: you just popped a loaf into the oven, and the smell of baking bread is slowly permeating through the house. You hang up on Karen because life is too short to listen to people droning on and on (sry Karen). You improvise by using a couple of boxes to set up your very own standing desk on your kitchen table (hey, I am an engineer). While standing there, admiring your ergonomic handiwork…
What’s that? Beep, beep, beep. Aha, your timer is going off—your bread is READY. You pull it out, mouth-watering from the delicious, tantalizing smell. After a few minutes, you cut into that steaming loaf, trying not to burn your fingers (Auugh, I couldn’t wait!). Smear on a slab of butter, plop a dollop of jam on it and you are in heaven. Nothing can stop you now. You are invincible, winning WFH. All your sad coworkers are at their desks having a miserable time, and here you are, a queen, eating literal carbo gold.
In all seriousness, baking bread is definitely a vibe right now, especially with the Coronavirus pandemic. Ask my Mom, she’s still scavenging for flour. While I was intimidated to try my hand at baking bread, it is actually pretty simple and very relaxing. Stressed about taking too much time away from work? Bread has an average of about 4 ingredients in it, and 99% of the time to make bread is for proofing and baking it. Stressed in general? Some breads can require 10-15 minutes of kneading time, which really just entails you pounding the shit out of it on a counter. Get your angst OUT.
Concerned about being buried in bread? One of the best parts about bread is that it is freezer friendly. If you can’t eat an entire loaf in two days like me, you can slice that bad boy up and freeze it in a Ziploc bag (or a reusable environmentally friendly product that I can’t get right now because I’m sheltering in place) and eat it anytime you want.
I threw together one of my favorite recipes, No-knead Crusty White Bread, from King Arthur Flour. The recipe calls for 7 ½ cups of flour, but I halved it to make just one loaf. The recipe also calls for regular flour, but I used bread flour (higher protein content). Whole foods and HEB were out of flour, so I improvised. My mom is probably cringing while reading this (she hates when I substitute. I normally would not do this, but you gotta do what you gotta do). I extended the proofing time a bit longer to compensate.
This bread is SO easy. It took me 10 minutes to put it together initially, and I proofed it for 3 hours at room temp, then 3 hours in the refrigerator. I used a dutch oven to bake it, and I baked it for the full amount of time. I removed the lid for the last 5 minutes just to give the top a bit more color. The CRUNCH that you get from baking it in a dutch oven kicks this bread into the top 10% of breads to bake. I made a pot of Senate Bean Soup to go along, but this bread was the star of the meal.
Easy, versatile, delicious—the perfect recipe to make in times like these.
Hope everyone is staying safe—and sane! Happy baking 😊
Here is the link to the recipe I used, so so tasty..not the recipe, the bread, lol.
2 Replies to “Knead A Little Comfort in These Trying Times? (King Arthur Flour No-Knead Bread)”
If you can’t get yeast I have been making sourdough for the last couple of years and can give you some starter. Of course there is still the flour to find….
Thank you! I finally found both flour and yeast!