Peter Reinhart On No-Knead Bread

As soon as I read about that NY Times/Jim Lahey no-knead bread, I thought - what would Brother Juniper say? Peter Reinhart, also known as Brother Juniper, is a bread baking maven, teacher and prolific author. I worked with him when he was at the California Culinary Academy, (I was a lowly staff person, not a chef mind you!) and I took a demonstration class he gave on poolish, biga and other slow-rise breads.

When I only had one child, I had time to mess around with Reinhart's recipes, which were tasty and wonderful but took plenty of planning and attention. Now I have two kids and they keep me busy -too busy to bother with a two- or three-day bread process. (okay, there's grad school too, my other excuse)

Well, out of curiousity I googled Brother Juniper and found his weblog:

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has put up the nicest comment about the new bread phenomenon. He isa generous man and looks at bread-baking the way a great researchscientist would - it's all grist for the mill, (so to speak) - he lovesthe new technique, he's delighted about the buzz, and he's going totest some variations to see if it's worth adding a chapter to hislatest book in progress. When my semester ends in ten days, I'm going to try the no-knead bread with the kids. And I may bake a Brother Juniper slow-rise bread too, for good measure.

Reply to
Leila
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Howdy,

There is nothing "new" about these no-knead techniques.

We've been commenting about them here for years, and I suspect that folks have baked this way for a few thousand years before that.

All the best,

Reply to
Kenneth

DITTO....indeed bakers in some developing countries (in the past ) indeed did it that way, the dough baked inside a clay pot .......but raised with crude sourdoughs starter... It just don't look appetizing to eat though....

Reply to
chembake

This may not be strictly "bread"-related but when I was in the RAF I was stationed at a Middle East airfield in 1963-64. One of the typical sights in the local market was a young lad with a crate of tinned, condensed milk; a sack of flour; a smaller sack of salt; and a small, mud-brick built, gas-fired oven. He sat cross-legged, mixed a small amount of flour, milk and salt (no yeast), moulded it briefly into a flattish, circular shape with his bare hands before opening the oven door, casually tossing the dough into the oven and closing the oven door. By the time he had mixed the next lot of dough the dough in the oven was ready to bring out and add to the pile of cooked "loaves".

Reply to
Bruce

Iteration 2.0 is currently in its final rise, and the Le Creuset pot is heating in the oven. Even though I used the same amount of water this go-round, the dough was less slack. (Surprising, given the humidity hereabouts.) It was much easier to shape today. My next-door-neighbor is intrigued by the method and requested a loaf for today's cooperative feast, along with some dinner rolls. Said rolls came out of the oven an hour ago.

So what are you pursuing in grad school???

Cindy

Reply to
Cindy Fuller

indeed the no-knead method seems to fit very well with the setup at ancient egyptian bakeries discovered around the pyramids - and famously recreated by Ed Wood

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andy forbes

Reply to
atty

atty wrote: ...>

Except there's paintings and statues of Egyptians kneading bread.

Let's not get too hasty. After all, it really doesn't matter how long it's been going on. I'm sure anyone that had an interruption or phone call in the middle of kneading would realise, as I did, that you really don't need to knead so much if you just take a good break in the middle. : -) The first good book that I got said to take a couple of breaks in the

20 minute knead that it suggested, well, me being young and fit, at the time, didn't think I needed a break. I didn't realise the break wasn't for me. lol.

Jim

Reply to
TG

:-)

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

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