no-knead bread | Bewitching Kitchen

For those who like it really hot…

It’s been a while since I blogged about bread, in fact I have a nice bread post waiting patiently in a long line to show up here, but last weekend I stumbled upon a very interesting recipe, and made it right away. I simply could not wait to share because it’s so unusual and intriguing. A very simple no-knead dough using instant yeast, but here is the devilish twist: the dough is flavored with red pepper flakes and…. ready for this? Sriracha sauce! Can you imagine it? Now, I am a certified Sriracha-cheerleader, but never imagined adding it to bread. Apparently no one had, until DeKay did a search in google for Sriracha and no-knead bread, and came up empty-handed. He took matters into his own hands (sorry, lousy pun), and made this version. I could not wait to try it. It turned out awesome, and I think any Sriracha lover will fall in love with the devil after trying a piece. Ok, if not with the devil himself, definitely with his bread.. But, before I give you the recipe, let me share a cartoon that cracked me up the other day. Perfect!

(Photo credit: Benjamin Schwartz/The New Yorker Collection/The Cartoon Bank)

Conde Nast TagID: cncartoons031905/Photo via Conde Nast

THE DIABLO BREAD
(adapted from The Mad Scientist Labs)

400 grams unbleached all-purpose flour
7 grams table salt
1/2 teaspoon instant dry yeast
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
260 grams cool water (55 – 65 °F)
60 grams (4 tablespoons) Sriracha sauce (go for it!)
Wheat bran for dusting

Mix the flour. salt, yeast, and pepper flakes together in a medium-sized bowl. Add in the water and Sriracha sauce. Mix using a wooden spoon or your hand until all of the flour is incorporated and the dough is sticky. This should only take 30 seconds or so. Add more water if the dough seems too dry.

Transfer the dough to another bowl lightly oiled or sprayed with cooking spray. Leave one hour at room temperature, remove the dough to a lightly flour surface and knead it 8 to 10 times. Place it back in the bowl, cover with oiled plastic wrap and leave it at room temperature for 3 more hours. Place it in the refrigerator overnight (about 12 hours). Remove the dough from the fridge, dump it into a lightly floured surface, and shape it as a ball. Place it in a banneton or another appropriate container seam side up, dusted with wheat bran for its final proofing, two hours at room temperature.

Heat the oven to 450 F. After the shaped bread proofed for 2 hours, invert it on a sheet of parchment paper, so that the seam side is now down. Slash the surface with a serrated knife, and place it in the oven, using your favorite method to generate steam (I bake my bread inside a large Dutch oven, and cover it with a wet lid).

After 30 minutes, open the lid and allow the bread to brown for 10 to 15 minutes longer. You can lower the oven to 425 F in case it is browning too fast.

Once the loaf is a nice dark brown, take it out of the pan and set it on a wire rack to cool for at least an hour.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Be honest with me. Have you ever seen a more awe-inducing color of a bread dough in your whole life? I know, you can hardly continue reading, you want to run away and call your family and close friends over, then your neighbors, and anyone else wandering the streets. It is pure Sriracha beauty. My dear friend Denise saw this photo and said “you expect to see a flamingo flying out of the dough any minute”. I could not have said it better myself.

My basic change to the recipe was to take it from “no-knead” to “minimal knead.” I’ve made enough no-knead breads to realize that just one small cycle of minimal kneading or folding does wonders to improve the texture of the crumb. It is almost as though with no kneading whatsoever you’ll get a slightly harsher crumb, not very well structured. One cycle of kneading gives the dough a little extra body that pays off in the final product. Of course, you can skip it and go for a completely knead-free production, you won’t hurt my feelings…

The smell as this bread baked was something! Sriracha on opioids. I fully agree with DeKay on the taste, though. It is not overly spicy, baking seems to mellow some of its peppery nature, but make no mistake, it is hot. If you don’t like Sriracha, this bread is not for you. As to the red pepper flakes, I think I like the amount I added, not more. Every once in a while you bite into a flake and get that hush of heat that lasts just a second or two. Perfect. I think this bread would be great paired with a bowl of chili in the winter, but if you toast it lightly and add some tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and run it under the broiler for a minute it is sinful. Sinful. But then again, what else could you expect from The Bread of the Devil?

😉

If you’ve been naughty enough, you can have several slices….

ONE YEAR AGO: Heart of Palm Salad Skewers

TWO YEARS AGO: Potluck Frittata and Lavoisier

THREE YEARS AGO: Home-made Corn Tortillas

FOUR YEARS AGO: Whole-Wheat Spaghetti with Peanut Sauce

FIVE YEARS AGO: Brigadeiros: A Brazilian Party!

SIX YEARS AGO: Lemony Asparagus

You would think that I’m done talking about gifts. Sorry, there is one more, a super special gift received from Celia, the bread baking Goddess Extraordinaire from Australia, hostess of the equally extraordinaire food blog Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. She found out that it was my birthday last month (full disclosure: I told her), and sent me a bread cookbook: Josey Baker Bread. I was traveling at the time, but could not wait to get my hands on some flour, salt, and yeast to put my gift to use. Of course, my first thought was sourdough, but we’ve been so busy lately, that every Wednesday would come and go, and I never remembered to revive my starter, hibernating in a – 20°C freezer. Finally, I could not wait any longer, and tried one of the simpler recipes using commercial yeast. This is by far one of the easiest breads you can make. All it takes is preparing a pre-ferment with whole-wheat flour, allowing that to sit at room temperature overnight, then proceed with a no-knead formula next day.

OVERVIEW OF THE RECIPE: to make this bread, you will start by mixing whole wheat flour with water and a little commercial yeast. That mixture will bubble away overnight, and will be part of the final dough, which contains only white flour, a little salt, lemon zest, fresh rosemary, and of course black olives. I actually omitted the rosemary because I did not have any at home then. I increased the amount of lemon zest, but other than that the recipe was followed to a T.

It is essentially a no-knead bread, with a very flexible schedule as far as preparing the dough and baking it. This is one of the things I loved the most about his cookbook: Josey offers a timetable for all his recipes, so that you can adjust making bread to your own schedule, no matter how busy you are. If you rather stay up late to bake, follow one particular timing. If you prefer to bake first thing in the morning, follow another one. Baking in the end of the afternoon? At lunch time? It’s all doable. Part of the beauty of working with yeast. If you are new to bread baking, this book will be perfect for you, because it totally demystifies the process. Reading the book is the closest thing to having a class on bread baking given by a pro who behaves more like a friend, not a snotty professor. Yeap, that is what Josey Baker’s book is all about.

If you want the full recipe, it is available online, reprinted with permission from Josey on this site.

For a no-knead bread, the crumb has quite a nice structure, and the taste is wonderful! The lemon zest was very prominent, and I think rosemary would make this bread perfect. But I would never substitute dried rosemary because I dislike its texture. In fact, one of the spices I rarely use in dried form is rosemary for that very reason. Unless it is part of mixes such as Herbes de Provence, but in that case it is pretty much pulverized and the drawback of harsh texture is eliminated. Still, get your hands on some fresh rosemary, grab your bag of flour and make this bread. The smell while it bakes is out of this world delicious! And refrain from grabbing one of those olives that will be peeking on the surface of the loaf. It is bad bread etiquette, and resisting that temptation builds character. HA!