Raise your hand if you haven’t made no-knead bread yet. Yep, that’s what I thought—I’m the only one in the world who hasn’t baked this miracle of yeast, flour and water. Heck, my mom, the person who taught me how to knead at a very young age, even she now bakes it. That’s my loss, I suppose, because having had the pleasure of eating it I do find it quite delicious. But Sunday I wanted a loaf of fresh-from-the-oven bread and just couldn’t wait overnight for the dough to work its magic: this meant I’d have to bake bread the old-fashioned way—by kneading.
I grew up with homemade bread and mom always had a jar filled with sourdough starter living the in the fridge. Though she didn’t just make sourdough bread—she also made cinnamon-raisin bread, dark whole-wheat bread, dinner rolls, saffron rolls, hot-cross buns, and a multitude of other baked goods that involved yeast, kneading and patience. When I was young I hated being the only kid with a sandwich on homemade bread, but over time I grew to love that toasty, yeasty smell that filled the house as a loaf baked, and the way butter just tasted better on a soft slice of bread straight out of the oven.
When I graduated from college and realized I’d have to cook for myself otherwise I’d go broke, bread baking became one of my passions. The first loaf I ever baked was a French baguette from The Joy of Cooking. It wasn’t very crispy and the crumb was a bit dense but it didn’t matter, I was hooked. I started spending my weekends experimenting with all sorts of different breads—one in particular that was a big hit with my friends was an olive-rosemary recipe I found in The New Basics Cookbook.
Now that I’m older, I don’t bake bread as often as I’d like—but last Sunday was a lazy day perfect for reading and waiting as my bread dough rose. Laurie Colwin has an amusing chapter about bread baking called “Bread Baking Without Agony” in her book Home Cooking. As she recounts the first time she baked bread with a friend, she expresses frustration with all the time involved for just one loaf. She writes: “The result was a perfectly nice loaf of bread, but after spending an entire day in its service, I expected something a little more heroic.” She has a point—there is a lot of downtime when baking bread, but on certain days I don’t mind being abiding as the yeast does it work. I find it peaceful that so much is happening without my exerting too much energy—save for the mixing and the kneading.
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