I mentioned in a previous post that flour is my favourite ingredient. This weekend, I made bread. The recipe I used is from Cook's Illustrated and is their version of a recipe from the NY Times. The original article is by Mark Bittman (of Minimalist fame) based on a recipe developed by Jim Lachey of Sullivan Street Bakery in NYC. It became a bit of a sensation on the web (I had no idea how many crazed bread bakers there were out there) because it called for very wet dough that sits for a long first rise with no kneading. The bread is baked in a hot dutch oven creating a steam environment that produces the dark crust that you normally need a professional oven for. So of course Cook's did their number on the recipe. Among other things, they added beer and vinegar to the liquids to enhance the flavour. Their biggest innovation is the use of parchment to transfer the wet dough to the hot pot. For this particular loaf I added dried cranberry and toasted pecans. There really is nothing like home made bread. My kitchen smelled amazing all day yesterday. Fresh bread spoils quickly (read the label of a mass produced bread and all those ingredients that you can't pronounce are there to prevent spoilage) so I follow one of my aunt's suggestion to slice it up, wrap it well and freeze.
