No Tea After 12 // The Bread to Beat all Breads

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The Bread to Beat all Breads

posted in, Bread on Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Can I get a hell yes? You know how I was on that losing recipe streak for awhile there? Well people, I am back with a vengeance! This is the mind-blowing recipe. It's good, it's great, it's baked! And before you tell me how tacky I am for "blowing my own baking horn", I'll just say, yahoo yippity! I made some damn good bread and I'm proud of it. Sometimes, you just gotta give yourself a little l-oven. Geddit? Oh anyway...

So I absolutely cannot take credit for this recipe, it is from the legendary Jim Lahey. Yes , I made the infamous "No Knead" bread that all you thousands of food bloggers out there have been waxing lyrical about for months, if not years. BUT...I can take credit for a few little additions, and I will say, that is what made this bread all the better for me. Sure, the bread on it's own was soft and squidgy inside, with deep resonating sourdough qualities, and the crust, oh the crust, was just like you would get from an artisan bakery. But you don't have the LEAVE THE HOUSE, which is always a bonus (especially if you are a pajama dweller like me).

Here's what I added to this already near to perfect recipe: Pears and Blue Cheese (Gorgonzola to be exact).

HUH?

Oh no she diiiiiiidin-t!

Oh yes, yes I diiiiiiid! I went there. I added fruit and cheese to a standard bread recipe and it was a-mazing.

Ok in the spirit of honesty, I had a hunch it would be amazing because every time I go to Harrod's I stand in line for 20 minutes to go through their bakery section (swiping things off the shelves as if my life depended on it) and I always, always get their Apple and Blue Cheese Loaf, which is also amazing. But I searched high and low for a recipe that even came close to it, and with no luck finding one I knew I had to just bite the bullet and make my own. So in my usual style of "why don't you try a totally new recipe and a totally new technique all in one day", I set off to make Jim's bread with the addition of pears and cheese.

The bread itself is so easy, it does take a few days to make, but the work is almost completely unattended - so unattended in fact that I let mine sit in the cupboard for a full 2 days before I remembered it was in there! But the bread didn't suffer for it, if anything I think that extra time resting, yeastly bubbling away gave it more pronounced sourdough qualities, which is no bad thing in my book. And to top that off, no knead, really is no knead. Some kind of magic happens between the long rising time and the oven, so I think from now on I might call this Jim Lahey's Magic Bread. As for the pear and blue cheese, well they are the perfect pear-ing (ooh I'm on a roll today) outside of the bread world, and I can now confirm they are beautiful together inside bread as well. The pear cooks quickly, leaving little sweet pockets of soft fruit and air throughout the dough, with the baked cheese transforming from sharp and bold, to mellow and salty. The whole thing turned out so well, I even surprised myself! Tres bon!

I had all these grand plans to post some good old fashioned real meals...but screw it, I'm a better baker and that's that. I've got my baking mojo back and I'm coming to an Internet site near you...with baked goods.

Jim Laheys Magic Bread with Pears and Gorgonzola

To bake this, you will need a large cast-iron or ceramic pot, with a cover. I used my beloved medium-sized oval Le Crueset and it was perfect.

For the dough:
4 cups / 400g plain or bread flour
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
2 cups / 473ml warm water (about °70F)

For baking
1 medium pear, chopped into 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 cup / 100g gorgonzola cheese, chopped into 1/2 inch chunks
cornmeal of semolina for sprinkling

To make the starter: Combine the flour, yeast, salt, and water in a large bowl. Stir until you have a shaggy, sticky dough. You may need to add a little bit more water here (I added about 1/4 cup more and it was perfect - just go slowly and add what you need). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and leave it in a warm(ish) place to rest for 18 - 20 hours, or in my case 48 hours. When it is ready, it will have risen to about double the size and the surface of the dough will be very bubbly.

When the dough is ready, lightly flour a large surface. Scoop the dough out of the bowl and fold it over two or three times. Don't be alarmed if it spreads out - a little bit like Jabba the Hut. Sprinkle the top of the dough with a little bit of flour, cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.

Once the bread has had 15 minutes, gently and quickly shape it into a ball. At this point, I added half of the pears and gorgonzola, shaped into another ball so they were evenly distributed throughout the dough, added the other half of "the good stuff" and shaped again. Jim Lahey suggests that you put the dough on a cotton (not terry cloth) towel sprinkled with cornmeal for the final rest, but I used a large sheet of plastic wrap sprinkled with flour as I could see the towel situation going horribly wrong. So putting my dough on the plastic wrap, and covering again with a new sheet of plastic wrapped worked just fine for me! Let the dough rest for another 2 hours. When it is ready, it will appear a bit more like "regular" bread dough, doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked.

About a half an hour before the bread is ready, turn the oven on to 450f / 230c. Put your covered pot into the oven to heat up as the oven heats up.

When your bread is ready to bake, carefully take your pot out of the oven, sprinkle the bottom with cornmeal or semolina (take it from me - don't skip this step or you will have to play tug-o-war with your bread later) and carefully plop your dough into the pot. Don't worry if it plops sideways or skewiff, it will even itself out in baking. Cover with the lid, and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and bake for another 20-30 minutes until the loaf is beautifully browned and crusty. If the dough starts to smell scorched, turn the heat down a little bit. When cooked, take out of the pot and let cool on a baking rack for at least 30 minutes. I had to let mine cool in the pot as it was too difficult to remove when hot - learn from my mistakes!

Makes 1 large loaf, 12-15 slices.

Over to you....

HELL YEAH!! This was the best bread ever, I’m drooling just thinking about it :) You are amazing!

I just made my starter!! I’m going to switch it up and go with a rosemary and parmesan with olives bread. Total ripoff of this lovely bakery in Traverse City… fingers crossed, I’ll let you know how it turns out!