Minimalist's Sullivan Street Bread (with updates)

Anyone who knows me could predict that one look at Wednesday's NYTimes Food Section would land me in the kitchen. My obsession with finding a truly acceptable loaf that I can bake at home regularly and realistically overcame my reluctance to invest my time in another "Minimalist" recipe. Lots of people swear by Mark Bittman's cookbooks and recipes. He's obviously knowledgeable and interesting, and his recipes often sound very good -but I don't have a lot of luck with them, for reasons unclear to me. This recipe comes from Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery, who invented it, and who is clearly a very clever fellow.

This is just too good an idea to pass up.I would be willing to bet that this loaf winds up on a large number of food blogs very soon, it's just such a cool concept. And if it tastes half as good as it looks-all crusty, full of various sized holes, a picture of roundness and artisan-ness, it could be my Solution. Reader/friend Lynn D. has already made it, and advises that it is outstanding. Despite her inexplicable distaste for rootbeer, I have pretty much found that if she likes something, so do I.

The concept is a bread which is not kneaded at all, and develops it's texture, gluten and flavor via a ridiculously long rise. (12-18 hrs.- with the longer time preferred.) It is baked at a high temperature in a heavy, covered, roomy pot, which is preheated, and mimics the effect of a real bakers oven. This results in a thin, crisp crackling crust of a sort not often found in home baking. I am a little worried, as I do not have a round pan of the specified type which is big enough. I'm going with an ovoid one instead, and hoping it will be okay. You can find the recipe here. If you want to keep it, print it out, as Times articles disappear into the pay-for-it archives very quickly.

Anyhow, because I'm so excited, I thought I'd post as I go along. the first photo is the dough after 8 hours of the first rise. It took about 2 minutes to mix the flour, water, salt and tiny bit of yeast in the bowl, before I went to bed. You keep it covered for 12-18 hours. As I have the day off for Veteran's Day, I'm going whole hog on the time. More to follow.

Later: Okay then, the second photo is the bread just out of the oven, the third after slicing. This bread is ridiculously great. I'm floored. The crust is truly thin and crackling, the crumb is all wheaty tasty and just slightly chewy. And it is soooosimple.

I may be making this bread every weekend-like, forever? BTW, I like the ovoid shape- better for slicing, I think...big slices from the middle for sandwiches, smaller ones from the end for bruschetta-what's not to like?

Later still: I forgot to mention, until June pointed it out (see her link below), that this bread is startlingly light. I was surprised when I picked it up, how very light it was. Yet the lightness comes with no sacrifice of toothsomeness, if you know what I mean. Nothing insipid about it-it's got chew and is full of flavor.

Breads Around the World:

This recipe has captivated quite a few cooks, and fast. The NYTimes+internet, reached a target audience awfully quickly. It helps if the target audience is composed of zealots, I guess. You can find other bakers' beautiful no kneading bread (with some pictures) at:

Bake My Day (karen)

My Kitchen in Half Cups(tanna)

Bakkerswereld(the Dutch baking forum)

Life Begins At Sixty-Five

Jaffa Mud Pies (aja)

Chili und Ciabatta (petra)

EAT (Leland)

Little Bouffe (Renz)

The Wednesday Chef (Luisa)

The Lovely Scones (Heather)

Bread, Water, Salt, Oil...(June)

Notievanlien (Lien) in Dutch, but also in English, for the occasion

Inmolaraan (The chocolate lady)

Life's A Quilt
(Hedgehog)

Apartment Therapy

The Buck Stops Here (Stuart Buck)
and on Flickr

Did you make this bread too? Let me know and I will link to your blog or your Flickr photos.

Note: I have fallen sadly behind adding links here, what with trip to New York, visiting English cousin, Thanksgiving etc. I will eventually add everyone to this list, for your convenience, but in the meantime, you can check the comments for more links to descriptions and photos.

Additional update: 2/3/2008: I'm still making this bread- almost weekly; it suits my schedule and it is more than adequate-I like it better than my local bakery breads- not as much as the Mediterra breads, but I can't pick those up in my neighborhood, or downtown where I work. I have made a number of changes in my personal method. After reading an article in Cook's Illustrated I tried a bit of kneading before the last rise. It seems to make the bread a little less moist. Also, I do the last rise in a reed banneton which is very seasoned, and quite thickly floured.* It dumps out easily into the dutch oven I use (5 qt., rather than larger), and I slash the loaf before I set the lid on. This seems to result in a higher, rounder bread, which I like. Still the main virtues of this loaf are: easy, great crackling crust, big holed crumb and chewy. Main flaw- a little damp. The flavor can be varied with hands full of different grains as desired. It is a nice, pleasant taste, though it's not totally fascinating. C. I. added lager for flavor, but this does not appeal to me at all.

*I keep all my seasoned floured stuff- bannetons and linen cloths, etc. in a zippered plastic bag that a comforter came in. So far, this has deterred invasion by tiny livestock.

Comments

[Luisa]

You beat me to it. It's on for this weekend, though... Can't wait to see how it turns out!

[june]

I'm so glad people are making long time dough instead of short time dough. This sounds absolutely as if it will work and I can't wait to see the finished product. The taste of the flour will come through, and the bread won't make you feel all bloated because the yeast has had time to do its digesting thing. So farewell ten minutes hard kneading and hurrah say all of us.

[Tanna]

That is so cool - a real time test.
I'll be following along. Hoping for cheers in 20 hours +!!

[sixty-five]

Mine is at just about this same stage. So far so good!

[Tanna]

woo...I got to this party late!! It's done.
That looks fantastically beautiful!
I just went and read the article and printed it out. I have to try this one.
Now, you saw it here first: what's the cast iron company - they've got to start making an bread pan for this recipe. Until then I'm with you on the oval shape!!!
Shucks it will be a while before this can be coming out of my oven. But this looks really impressive.

[Baking Soda]

I'm late too, but guess what..I can still make the dough and let it ferment tonight, it's only 10 pm, just the right time to start a bread! I love the holes in this one and the crust is amazing, I think it is basically the same bread I make in my Römertopf, but less fuss.

[lindy]

I'm just really over the moon about this bread recipe, and glad to see many people trying it. If you make it, please let me know how you like it.
BTW, I used King Arthur's unbleached all purpose flour, rather than a "bread" flour, because it is my personal preference for this kind of bread.
I am crazy for recipes which are reasonable for a home cook to make often, not gimmicky, and don't take special equipment or odd ingredients. This bread is better than most bakery bread available here, and nobody could call it fussy. I'll stop babbling now.

[Luisa]

look at that bread! I love it. Thanks so much for the update. I'm so excited to try this out! I might do a mix of bread and AP flour. Will keep you posted...

[sixty-five]

All done! Come see....

[Tanna]

Well, I just started mine about 45 minutes ago - so I have a ways to go. Lindy, this is really fun.

[Heath]

I'm totally trying it this weekend - yours looks FABULOUS!!

[Kimberly]

Oh, Lindy, how wonderful! It looks gorgeous. I'm glad that it's the bread you've been hoping to find.

When I walked into my workday coffee place/bookstore this morning, my friendly barista asked if I had seen this recipe. (He knows that we're just finishing up the kitchen remodel, and that I'm hot to do some baking.) As we were discussing the idea of buying a present (perhaps a nice large dutch oven?) for one's newly remodeled kitchen, or perhaps giving oneself a present for having survived said remodel, another regular came in. She had started her first loaf of this recipe before work this morning.

[lindy]

Ha! Kimberly, what a hoot! One Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery-sudden reknown all over the US....of a perhaps odd sort, but still. I wonder if he knows. I guess the giant article in the Times would be a clue...

[Ivonne]

Alright. You've convinced me. I will give it a try!

[Tanna]

This thing is around the globe as of last night Baking Soda wrote me this: Around the globe in one evening, I just got mail from a dutch baking forum and the poster announces "bread baking for dummies" in which she refers to this exact same article. I imagine there are a few fellow dutch bakers who will try this and show their results on the forum.

[Baking Soda]

Well, I can tell you right now it's a hot topic and there are quite a few starters bubbling in Holland. I hope I can get "loan" pictures to show on my blog.
Happy to tell you that my bread is out of the oven and cooling on a rack as we speak!
Lindy, this reminds me of the Royal Crown Tortano, less work but same kind of supple soft dough...

[lindy]

Can't wait to see it. Amazing stuff. I'll keep checking for all your photos.

[Ari (Baking and Books)]

This does sound like an awesome bread - do they print the recipes in NY Times? I need to subscribe!

[peabody]

Looks like a great bread!

[Melissa]

So funny, I read this article and thought very cool idea. And just like you, I thought I'd blog about it.....but I ended up making a Ciabatta yesterday!
Your crust is beautiful and crusty looking and the crumb structure is perfect!
Bravo!

[aja]

What a gorgeous loaf, and I love the pot you used - what a great idea. Are you going to try this using other flour variations? If yes, I would be really interested in knowing the results.

And in the vein of being effusive, I check to see if you've written something new every day 8^)

[Tanna]

Yes, I'm thinking there must be a whole grain alternative in my future!

[Petra]

I made this bread too. You can see some photos at http://peho.typepad.com/chili_und_ciabatta/2006/11/brot_fr_knetfau.html

[sixty-five]

Thanks for the link! I have another batch in the works now, starting with a firmer dough.

[sixty-five]

Just visited the NYT "Cooking and Recipes" forum. It is not surprisingly crackling with posters who are making this. Nearly all are finding their first attempts way too wet, noting the disconnect between the recipe and the video, and finding "stick to the towel" problems (as I found, even with my firmer second batch). The use of wheat bran (as in the video) was suggested by one as the easy solution to this.