This was my second attempt at the no-knead bread. I think all around that the results were better. Here are the things I changed for this attempt:
1) I used bread flour instead of all-purpose (still King Arthur brand)
2) I used slightly more than 1.5 cups of water - just enough to get all of the flour to incorporate into the dough ball - probably 1.5 cups plus a teaspoon
3) I used about 3/8 of a teaspoon of yeast instead of 1/4 a teaspoon (Fleishmann's RapidRise)
4) I used less salt: 1.5 teaspoons instead of 2
5) I used LeCreuset glazed ceramic loaf pans instead of an enamel coated cast iron dutch oven for the baking vessel
Everything else was done the same (rising times, baking times, temperature, etc.)
Let me give you more details on the loaf pans. Here is what one of them looks like:
As you may recall from the instructions on my first attempt at making this bread, the first 30 minutes of baking is done with the lid on the top of the dutch oven. Well, these loaf pans don't come with a lid, so I just bought two of them, and used the second one - turned upside down - as the "lid" during the covered backing stage.
As with the dutch oven and its lid, you need to have both loaf pans in the oven (or Egg) while it is preheating to 475.
Again I used my oven instead of the Egg, this time because it was 16 degrees outside with a wind chill of 1. That's right. One degree. No thanks. Not for this Georgia boy.
And here are the results - this loaf was wonderful - perfect crust, chewy interior. The interior was just very slightly underdone - probably 5 more minutes during the closed baking phase would have fixed that, but personally I liked how chewy the interior was so no complaints from me. I think that perhaps these ceramic loaf pans didn't transfer as much heat as the cast iron thus the slightly less cooked interior.
And here are the results:
Fresh out of the oven:
Cooling:
And sliced:
I took this loaf to my local coffee house and shared it with friends - I've been eating too much bread lately! This no-knead stuff is addicting because of the extremely high quality-to-effort ratio. I highly recommend it!!
