How to Bake No Knead Bread Unsuccessfully Twice

I had never baked bread from scratch before and we have recently developed a taste for nice french bread. So I figured I would give it a try.

Normally bread dough is allowed to rise and then kneaded for a while. Kneading develops the gluten - the sticky strands of protein that emerge from the dough, which forms the matrix in which the yeast-generated bubbles reside.

There is another way to develop the gluten other than getting messy and working out your arms and hands. That way is by waiting patiently and allowing the dough to develop it on its own. That takes about 18 hours.


So one evening earlier this week I mixed four cups of all purpose flour, a half teaspoon of yeast, one and a half teaspoons of salt and two and a quarter cups of flour in a bowl.


I then covered the bowl with plastic wrap and went on with the rest of my life.


After some television, and talking, and eating, and reading and sleeping, and working and coming home from work, I looked in the bowl and found that the volume had doubled and that a pleasant yeasty smell was wafting around by the bubbly dough. So I folded it a couple of times to drop it back down to size, and plopped it into a pot for another hour to rise a little more.


Then I plopped the pot with a lid on it into a 450 degree oven for 45 minutes. Baking it in a pot keeps the moisture in and allows for a nice crust.


It looked really nice when I took it out.


It smelled really nice too.


It was kind of rubbery when I cut it open.


It had the consistency of a rubber inner tube, and didn't taste very nice. I think I hadn't let it rise enough the second time.


So the night before last I mixed another batch up and did all those things until the 18 hours had elapsed that I had done before.


I let the dough rise for another 3 full hours after folding it and then put it into the oven on a baking sheet (no pot this time) for 45 minutes at 450 degrees.


I sat and waited.


I swirled in circles and played with my camera.


I waited and waited.


Then I pulled it out of the oven.


It looked good.


It smelled good.


It was crunchy on the outside but still a bit doughy on the inside. There wasn't enough salt either.

So while my two efforts were unsuccessful, they weren't completely unsuccessful. I am going to keep at it until I can bake bread. It may take another five or ten tries. But eventually I'll get it right.

Tim Smith of Jack Mountain Bushcraft writes a nice piece about the concept of mastery as it pertains to using a bow drill to get coals to make fire. He reminds us that you need to work at skills over and over again until you can be consistent and efficient.

0 to 25 Coals (or loaves of bread) - Beginner Level
26 to 100 Coals (or loaves of bread) - Student Level
101 to 999 Coals (or loaves of bread) - Journeyman Level
1000 or more Coals (or loaves of bread) - Master Level

It may not take me 1000 tries to get perfect bread, but I know I won't be able to get it right the first few times.

Cheers,

Mungo

Walkies Past a Hollow Apple Tree

All the ice and the snow is beginning to melt away with the brief appearance of some warm weather. Monty and I went for a walk in the slushy mess out back behind the house.


We wandered about and sniffed at trees and saw old mushrooms and rotten apples emerging from the snow.


There is an apple tree that has a hollow main branch. It looks like it is full of tunnels.


Pine cones and seeds and berries sustain the squirrel population around here.


Monty met up with a member of the neighbourhood canine population. Milk bones and kibble sustain these creatures.


As we passed by the apple tree again, I raised my camera up above my head and snapped a couple of shots. When I got home and looked at them on my computer, I realized that I had inadvertently taken a portrait of a curious squirrel.

Cheers,

Mungo

The Big Bright Full Moon at its Closest Perigee

So tonight the big bright full moon is at its closest perigee of 2008. That means it is the closest to earth that it has been this year.

"Although a full moon happens every month, the one that rises [tonight] will appear about 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than the other full moons seen so far this year."

It is also closer to the earth tonight than it has been for the past 15 years. If you wait another 8 years it will get close again.


I went out into the cold backyard with the pooch and tried out my new camera. There are 1.9 million more features on it compared with my old camera, and honestly I couldn't figure out how to adjust the focus - go figure. Well, I took a few shots and now it is too late to wander around in the backyard, so I have to be satisfied with the ones I took.


It was back in February of this year that I took photographs of a lunar eclipse through a pair of binoculars with my old digital camera.


They were way better.


The good news is that I have the manual for this camera.


I am going to read and read and read until I get it right.

Cheers,

Mungo

Fumbling, Awkward, Maladroit Weather

The weather here in Toronto is feeling a little awkward. It can't seem to say the right thing, and always ends up bursting out with something inappropriate and maladroit.


Last night it dropped a big white fluffy blanket of snow on the trees and driveways and roads and rooftops. And then from the morning onwards into the evening it thought to start again (a bit embarassed I suppose) and ended up making a very big wet drippy mess of it all, and the more it tried to fix itself, the more everything got damp and soaked. Right now the weather has decided that wet is no longer 'in', and is trying hard to freeze it all solid overnight. It will awake having impulsively covered the whole city in a slippery, icy, hazardous sheen.


But don't worry. Just give it time. It will mature. And soon a nice wintery patina will emerge, and the crunch will return to the ground. And I will be out and about in the valley again, accompanied by a beagle leading the charge and snuffling about.


But in the meantime I am going to keep busy baking things. I am going to try baking bread next week.


Tonight I made a big chicken pot pie with a nice pastry crust.

That is all,

Mungo

Beagles Eat Bird Food

Now that the snow and blowing winter winds have come, I have gone out and stocked up on bird food. I also bought a large sack of animal-grade peanuts.


Careful analysis has revealed that despite my best efforts, beagles eat bird food. Specifically, Monty likes to nibble on the peanuts that I have put out for the squirrels.


He is on a diet - I am feeding him 1 cup of calorie-reduced kibble, and 3 diet milk bones a day. He is complaining more and more. Poor little guy.


We have the Christmas tree up now. It looks nice and shiny. Christmas will be here in less than 3 weeks.


Add another 4 weeks to that and Monty is going to have a little brother. A little brother who will not be as furry as Monty was when he came home with us.

Cheers,

Mungo

Soft Snow on the Smelly Fields - Playing with my Camera

I woke up around 6 this morning and went to a first-aid course for infants and children during the morning.





The class covered blood and breathing and airways and broken bones and cuts and choking and CPR and slings and compression bandages and more.




It has refreshed my first-aid training from years ago. I knew it all, but the CPR - the technique had seeped away from my brain.




When it was all over, I got a coffee from a Tim Horton's shop around the corner from the hospital.




I headed back in the general direction of home, and then turned north when I remembered that I had brought my new camera along with me.




The views looked nice and so I turned on my camera and drove a bit until I found a nice looking area.




A little snow was falling and it was a few degrees below freezing.




Bundled up in my shearling cap, warm gloves and my super warm alpine coat, I ended up in a corn field. The smell of pig manure blew over me and I looked around the horizon trying to find a pig farm.




After a few minutes, it became apparent that the farmer had sprayed pig manure on the field as a fertilizer.


I figured that out once I had walked about 30 feet into the field.

Cheers,

Mungo

Bivy Sack in the Winter Snow

Now the winter snows haven't come yet, but when they do I'll be out and about wandering in the valley and in the woods.


It occurred to me that I'd like to spend an evening down there wrapped up warmly and laying inside a bivy sack from Mountain Equipment Co-op.

"A bivy bag, bivouac, bivi, or bivy sack is a lightweight alternative to traditional tent systems. It is essentially a waterproof fabric shell designed to fit over your sleeping bag. It acts as a barrier against the wind and rain and provides extra insulation. Good bivy bags consist of Gore-Tex and are breathable, allowing humidity to pass and so reducing moisture inside for the occupant."

Hope you are having a nice day,

Mungo