Baking Bread

After years aboard our yacht Sequitur, I had refined the art of baking bread. It was not that I had done this before, or a hobby of mine, but it was the result of lack of a good loaf. 

South of the United States border the variety of bread becomes sparse. What is plentiful on the shelves were hamburger buns, hot dogs buns, sweet raisin buns, sticky cinnamon buns and gooey white bread. They all come with a very long shelf life. 

I decided to try the no-knead bread from NY times. After having success with the plain loaves I got more adventurous and made some small changes.

Adding cranberries and pecan nuts to one, raisins and currants to another. Garlic bread, olives with sun-dried tomatoes followed.   The exterior crust shifted from corn to sesame and cracked wheat. 

The raisin bread was Michaels favourite and we called it Officers Bread. He had been a Naval Officer and that was what they enjoyed onboard, but found the freshly baked Sequitur bread so was much better.

    

As we sailed further down the South America coast, we found no improvement and just kept on baking. 

In warmer climates we left the bread to rise in the sheltered cockpit, it was getting too cold and we moved the yeast aroma indoors. We also switched to pizza dough and tried our hand in bagels.  

Today I still bake my bread with the few ingredients listed below. If I leave the freshly cut loaf out to long, it gets stale, a sign of no preservatives. After slicing, I freeze it immediately to enjoy with a good cup of Dutch coffee. Did I mention we baked biscotti?

For more picture view in Pinterest dining aboard Sequitur

No-knead bread

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
• ¼ teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

PREPARATION

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.