Bread - a new take on Jim Lahey's loaf

I've been baking a lot of bread recently. I haven't bought a loaf for a couple of years, and these days my homebaked bread feeds not only the family but also the chickens and the dog. I use a bread machine for days when there isn't the time or inclination to bake by hand; in the winter in this cold house it's the most reliable place to nurture the yeast, so I often use the dough setting and then finish the loaf by hand.

Years ago, I was one of a multitude of bloggers entranced by the New York Times loaf, and this winter I've been reading Jim Lahey's wonderful book explaining how it came about, the journey of a lifetime. And so I've been playing with the core idea of that bread: baking the dough in a hot, covered Le Creuset pan in the oven.

It's the ultimate loaf for beginners: whatever dough you use, the end result is a beautiful boule of bread, a little cracked, full of air

- it even gives rise to a wholemeal loaf made with winter wheat, which normally makes the kind of heavy wholemeal loaf that gives home baking a bad name.

Try it: make your usual dough. After the first rise, shape it loosely into a ball,* dusting liberally with flour or semolina/polenta (it gives it a nice finish, but it also means you can pick it up easily). Leave it to rest while you heat the oven to 220C at least - if your oven will go to 240C, so much the better. Put a Le Creuset pan**** + lid in the oven**. When the oven and the pan are hot hot hot, remove the lid and drop the dough in***. Put the lid back, and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and bake for 10 more minutes. The crust will sing as it cools (on a rack).

Notes

* don't worry if the dough is shaggy, don't worry if you can't shape it, the heat of the covered pan will sort all this out
**no need to grease or flour, so long as your loaf has a good dusting of flour or cornmeal, it won't stick
***the dough should be as centrally placed as possible, for a perfectly circular loaf; if you drop it off-centre, you'll get a charmingly lop-sided loaf
****you can apparently also use a Pyrex casserole, but I've never tried this

















Things to do with stale or leftover bread

Be warned, these suggestions only work with good bread - useless with supermarket pap!

Panzanilla
Herb stuffing for roast chicken
Grilled trout with rosemary stuffing
Baked scallops
Anchovy toasts
Bread sauce


Related posts

Daily bread
Daily bread 2

Six seed rolls
Bread knots - another simple way to make beautiful and delicious rolls, using this dough, or your default dough

Yeast starter for bread - and the bread make your own sourdough starter

No-knead bread the famous NY Times recipe
Speeded-up no-knead bread and a different take on it

Yoghurt bread fabulous, easy, TRY IT
Quick oat loaf
Spelt bread - it's getting easier to buy this highly-flavoured flour

Anti-oxidant tea bread - I made this for my husband for a pre-surgery boost - delicious, too!

Yeast conversion - fresh/dried/quick
Oven temperature conversions - Centigrade, Fahrenheit, gas mark, descriptive


Useful links

Susan at Farmgirl Fare has just updated her very good post of tips for better baking

She's one of the contributors to A Year in Bread, which is a very useful resource for anyone interesting in baking

Tanna at My Kitchen in Half Cups has been an inspiration to my baking, although our paths don't cross so much these days ... try her cornbread

Pains au chocolat

Very easy, very delicious, very fattening, very more-ish.

I used dark orange chocolate, and could have improved on this theme with some orange zest in the dough. Lettice said she'd like milk chocolate next time. They took little more than an hour and a half, and only five minutes of my time.

for 6 pains au chocolat

Put into the bread machine:

1/2 tsp yeast
250g strong white flour
2 tbsp vanilla sugar
2 tbsp butter
a pinch of salt
2 eggs beaten with 3 tbsp milk

Mix on the dough setting.

Knead the dough into a cylinder shape, then cut into six equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rectangle, put a square of chocolate in the centre, then fold the two sides over (as if you were folding a sheet of A4 into a long envelope). Place in a mini loaf pan (mine are 11cmx6 and 3cm deep). Leave in a warm place to rest and rise*, then bake for 10-12 minutes in a hot oven (220C).

Eat while warm. Mmmmm

* Mine had hardly risen at all when I put them in the oven after about 20 minutes' rest ... they were still light and airy, oven spring gave them their lovely final loaf shape


































Other enriched doughs

Hot uncrossed buns
Fabulous cinnamon rolls
Anti-oxidant teabread
Homemade marzipan - an alternative filling for brioche dough

Hot uncrossed buns

I made some more hot cross buns on Easter Sunday, and they were gobbled up for tea, gone in moments. These were a slight refinement from the Good Friday recipe, better - only I forgot to slash crosses in them, so I suppose that makes them teacakes. Or crossless buns. Eleanor's favourite, anyway - and she's been very helpful with improving this recipe.

The main changes are making the buns half the size, ensuring that the oven is very hot indeed, and using a lot more spice. Yet to be tried is a little lemon zest - I think it would give the dough a lift.

Here's how it goes:
this makes 12

1/2 tsp instant yeast
300g strong white flour
20g melted butter
150g water
pinch of salt
dssp honey
3 tsp mixed spice, maybe even four (I used the Christmas pudding mix from The Spice Shop)

a handful of sultanas (best soaked for a while, but, obviously, not always possible) kneaded in while you are forming the buns

When the dough is mixed (I've been using the machine), form into buns and leave to rise in a warm place. Decorate with a cross - but that should really only be on Good Friday. Bake in a very hot oven.

While the buns are still warm, brush with honey melted in a little water - I put a pot on the edge of the stove, and it amalgamated into a fragrant syrup in moments, even though it was the solid English sort of honey.

Related links

Hot cross buns, Mk 1
Antioxidant tea bread
Fabulous cinnamon rolls - another of E's favourites

Hot cross buns

I've made all the bread eaten in this house for well over a year, so today I'm making hot cross buns, a great British tradition for Good Friday. These are just notes so that I can make them again next year. I've simply tweaked the pizza dough I mix in my machine.

for 5-6 hot cross buns

1/2 tsp instant yeast
300g strong white flour
20g melted butter
a handful of sultanas
150g water
pinch of salt
dssp honey
tsp mixed spice

When the dough is mixed, form into buns and leave to rise in a warm place. Decorate with a cross - either by slashing, or with a flour and water paste. Bake in a hot oven.

While they are still warm, brush with melted honey. Mmmm


PS as I forgot to put a tsp mixed spice into the mixture, I added it to the honey, which I melted with a drop of water

PPS putting the sultanas into the machine at the beginning means that they get cut up into little pieces, which sweetens the dough, but means you don't have whole sultanas. My machine isn't reliable at mixing in additions, they're often left sitting on the edge of the dough - next time, I think I'll add a few as I'm forming the buns.

PPPS there are so many alternative views about making the flour paste for the crosses, and I'm running out of time - so I simply slashed the buns