No Knead Bread

Winter has finally decided to drop in on us here in Toronto. And lately, all I want to do is knit and bake bread (and sleep, like Pepper, our cat, who truly gets what February is all about). So that's what I did this weekend. Plus I've wanted to share this bread recipe with you for some time. The no-knead bread craze has been going on for a few years, but I tend to be a bit slow with trends so I only caught on last year. If you haven't heard of it yet, watch out, because it may revolutionize your life as you know it.

I can't really think of many things more delightful than a loaf of bread, fresh out of the oven, with butter slathered all over it. That smell of baking bread must be as old as time. A smell smelled through the ages! To me it signifies home, comfort, safety, the soother of all woes. To tell you the truth, I've never been a huge bread person, but hot out of the oven, it's a sacred ritual and I always make sure to be hovering around if a new loaf is about to be born. Growing up, my stepdad would bake bread every Saturday. He'd have his favourite tunes cranked up to the max, a towel thrown over his shoulder, and he would do the weekly mop of the kitchen floor, and bake a batch of bread to last us the week. 

I've tried making various bread recipes over the years and never been particularly happy with the results. But this one sold me on the first try. More than one person has said to me "this is the BEST bread I've ever eaten in my life". And it's not me, it's the recipe. Seriously people. This is the shit. It's so easy you barely have to lift a finger. Get ready to blow your own socks off because what will come out of your oven is something of a calibre that you won't believe.

The recipe comes from New York baker Jim Lahey who owns Sullivan Street Bakery in New York. He came up with the recipe as a way to replicate, in a home oven, that crunchy on the outside, moist and chewy on the inside texture of wood-fired Italian bread. He says this recipe is so easy that even a 4-year old can make it. My roommate first heard about it  through a friend and borrowed his book My Bread from the library. She kept renewing it for months so it sat on our counter for a long time and we eventually all became converts. Basically, anyone who comes into contact with this recipe starts to pop out fresh loaves worthy of the finest boulangeries. And with that comes the inherent responsibility to share the secret with everyone you know, so beware because this recipe may turn you into a no-knead bread missionary.

The best part is you can't really mess it up. Even if you don't get it quite right, it will still probably be the best bread you've ever made. I like to use 2 parts unbleached wheat flour and 1 part spelt for my bread. Usually, I make a walnut & apricot bread loaf: my ultimate favourite (if you try this one, be sure to use the dark brown organic apricots, they are so much better! Just throw in about a cup of whole walnut halves and whole apricots). Next runner-up is rosemary olive bread (throw in a bunch of fresh rosemary and chopped kalamata olives)...  basically, if you're feeling inspired, get creative with your bread, throw in some fennel seed, caramelized onions, whatever strikes your fancy! For the sake of today's post, I just made a plain white batch using organic unbleached white flour. 

 

ONE VERY IMPORTANT TIP: As tempting as it may be to slice into your loaf right away, be sure to wait an hour before taking the first slice otherwise the bread will be gummy.

AND ONE MORE NOTE: Water amounts are a variable thing in bread, the exact amount depends on many things including the type of flour you're using, and also it's a matter of personal taste. I like a wet dough with this recipe but I find my loaves come out quite flat. Lately, I've been cutting down on the water a little and shaping the loaves with lots of flour to get them into a nice boule shape. But I like the texture of the flat loaves better. My roommate prefers the boules. We've been discussing this in great detail lately, and it's an endless process of tweaking and tasting and discussion…  the fun continues!

No-Knead Bread

3 cups flour (Jim Lahey recommends a minimum of 2 cups white unbleached flour for best results. The third can be spelt, whole wheat, rye, whatever you fancy, or just all white)

1/4 tsp active dry yeast

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup water

Roughly mix all ingredients together. The dough will be slightly more wet and sticky than regular bread dough. Cover and let sit between 12 to 24 hours. (I find the results are best at 24 hours, your dough will be nice and bubbly)

Pick up your dough and fold it over onto itself a few times. Put it back in the bowl. Cover and let sit for another 2 hours. 

Preheat oven to 450 F. Put a lidded dutch oven / cast iron pot in the oven for about 15 minutes to get it piping hot. Remove from the oven and sprinkle semolina or cornmeal in the pot to prevent the bread from sticking. Dump your mound of dough in there and swiftly put the cover back on.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid. Bake for another 15 minutes. Let the bread sit for an hour before cutting into it.  That's it, that's all!

Oh, and happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Baba au rhum

My mom's baba au rhum from Kitchen Vignettes on Vimeo.

I can't actually remember the first time my mom made Baba au rhum. But somewhere in my teenage years, it became a yearly tradition and she wowed family and friends (and got them tipsy too!) with this recipe. A Baba - you may be wondering - is a yeasted brioche bun that is soaked in rum syrup. My mom would make this dessert only once a year at Christmas, so it was a cherished and much-anticipated holiday treat. At this time of year, I miss my mom so much. She would get giddy and mischievous about Christmas, like a little kid. And this recipe is a perfect expression of her exuberance and Christmas cheer. She would usually put a fair bit more rum than the recipe calls for so her Baba au rhum really packed a good punch, and I'm pleased to say I am proudly carrying this tradition forward.

Along with making Babas for our family, the week before Christmas, my mom would make them for her knitting circle: a group of warm, witty, creative, and zany women who meet once a week at Gaspereau Valley Fibres, the gorgeous wool store down the road where she worked for many years. She loved those knitting afternoons with a passion! She would always come home with rosy cheeks and a sparkle in her eye. When I was home visiting, I would sometimes drop in on the group with her but always as an onlooker, never as a knitter. But recently, after years of resisting it, I finally started knitting, thanks to the patient instruction of my roommate's mom. So this year, I decided to make the Babas and bring them and my wonky half-finished mittens to my mom's knitting comrades. It's easy to see why she loved these women so much. I also understand where that twinkle in her eye came from, because holy moley (!), the conversations over there can get pretty naughty!! Which makes it all the more understandable that my mom drove around with this bumper sticker on her car.

From the snowy Gaspereau Valley in Nova Scotia, here is wishing you all a very wonderful Christmas eve, and a joyful Christmas day. May there be magic in the air and delicious goodies in your belly!

Baba au rhum

This recipe is from the Madame Benoit cookbook, which was my mom's cooking bible. Madame Benoit is kind of the Canadian version of Julia Child and though our copy of The Encyclopedia of Canadian Cuisine is very worn, missing its cover, and weighs a ton, it is still my go-to cookbook when I am home and I love reading my mom's handwritten notes on her favourite recipes.

Dough

1 pkg active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)

1 tsp sugar

1/4 cup warm water

2 cups flour (I used light spelt)

4 eggs lightly beaten

1 tbsp sugar

2/3 cup soft butter

2 tbsp currants

Syrup

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup water

1 cup rum

Stir 1 tsp. sugar in warm water.  Add yeast, let stand 10 min. Sift flour in the middle of a large bowl, and make a well in the middle.  Pour in the eggs and yeast mixture. Work with fingers until you have a soft dough.  Knead in the bowl for 2 min.  Cover and let rise in a warm place, until double in bulk (about 2 hours). Punch down.  Add the 1 Tbsp sugar, soft butter and currants and work until well blended.  Knead 3 - 4 min. Fill greased baba molds (or muffin pans) to half full with the dough.  Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk.  Bake in 450F oven for 10 min, then reduce heat to 350F and bake 20 - 30 min depending on mold size.  For the syrup: boil sugar and water 5 minutes until you have a light syrup.  Remove from heat.  Cool completely before adding the rum. Generously pour the rum syrup all over the babas or as my mom used to do, put the babas right in a large bowl filled with the syrup and let them sit in the syrup so that they absorb as much of it as they possibly can. The rum syrup should soak right through to the centre of the baba. (I generally double the syrup recipe to make sure there is enough). Whipped cream goes wonderfully with these as it softens the intensity of the rum.

I was hoping to get this post up in ample time before Christmas and I'm a little late... but these also make a perfect New Year's Day dessert so I hope some of you out there will try these!

Massaged Kale Salad

The first time I ever heard of massaged kale salad, my initial reaction was what the hell kind of hippy salad is that? (I'm allowed to say things like that because I grew up pretty much as 'hippy' as it gets and I'm all about (affectionate) self-deprecation, like this Portlandia clip which is basically a spot-on parody of my personal approach to meat-eating).





But I gave the salad a try, because I like to play with my food and massaging kale sounded fun. This recipe has since become a standard favourite. Massaging the kale with lemon juice, olive oil and salt helps break down the cell walls of the kale leaves and makes it easier to digest. I'm sharing it with you today because (aside from being DEE-licious!) it's a very festive recipe that looks great on the holiday dinner table. Plus at this time of year when there's such mountains of rich foods all around, it's nice to get some raw, fresh goodness on the table and this salad is packed with antioxidants! I was also suspecting some of you out there still have kale in your gardens because I sure do...

I took this photo 2 days ago, when it felt like -20 celsius. How cool to be able to harvest your food in the middle of December! (eh?!) I try to eat as local as I can year-round but sadly kale is the only local ingredient in this recipe. The thing is, if I had to name 3 non-local things that I can't resist, it would be the 3 other ingredients in this salad: avocado, pomegranate, and fennel. Actually, I guess fennel can be local but hard to find the local stuff this time of year. So here you go... a local / un-local salad. (No time to make a video today but I've got a Christmassy ones coming your way so stay tuned!)

Massaged Kale Salad with avocado, fennel, and pomegranate

1 bunch of kale

1 pomegranate

1 fennel bulb

1 avocado

For the massage oil: 

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp. salt

Rip the kale leaves into pieces, discarding the stems. Mix the juice of one lemon, olive oil and salt together and pour half of it on the kale. Now get intimate with that kale! Rub the massage oil into the leaves for about 10 minutes, until the kale is a deeper green and shrinks down in size somewhat. You can also taste it to see how chewable / flavourful it is. Thinly shave the fennel, chop avocado into cubes, and de-seed the pomegranate. Pour on the remainder of the dressing. Mix together & there you have it.