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No Knead Ciabatta

John and Saundra Murren <jmurren@harborside.com>
Sun, 30 Apr 2000 05:12:39 -0700
v100.n040.11
Greetings From Oregon,
I've been noticing a few posts regarding the book, "No Need To Knead", and
thought I'd share a recent accidental experience.  I do a lot of pizza type
crusts, and have never found a recipe that didn't require kneading, which I
think sometimes I overdo with my KA.  Recently I decided late in the day to
start a pizza, and rushed it to the point that I didn't do one bit of
kneading!  I made a very wet/soft simple dough, and gave it a quick rise of
an hour.  I noticed that the dough had a wonderful soft and pliant
character, which I assume was due to a lack of gluten development.  It
baked up very consistently, w/o the bulges I often get in the hot pizza
oven tiles.  The end result was a nice chewy crust, a light airy interior,
and crisp on the bottom.

I loved the resulting bread, especially in light of the savings in effort
and agrivation, and have used it most successfully in making various types
of ciabatta, but always with a dough so wet that it can only be worked on a
heavily floured board.  Have others had similar experience?  I wonder why
I've not seen more recipes suggesting that kneading is not always
necessary?  jm

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