I finally got around to making the NY Times bread. The crust and flavor were excellent-- this is definitely the best bread that's come out of my kitchen. I followed the weight measurements here, but the dough did not seem slack enough, so I added a bit of extra water. This was probably a mistake, as the final bread was a bit too moist. However, the taste of the bread proved that upping the salt to 10g as RLB suggests is definitely a good idea.

i concur about the quality of this bread, and next time will add a dash more salt. i haven't made bread for a long time, and was a little down on doing it at home after finding good bread at the store, but this recipe is so easy you almost feel you should have a loaf brewing all the time. the texture of my loaf was airy and highly elastic, so much so that butter literally rolled off of it.

Bittman is back on bread. This time quick breads. The batter for this took about 5 minutes to put together. It's in the oven now.

And is it out yet?

And how thick was the batter/dough? I just made a batch with yogurt and it was pretty thick.

eta: Just took mine out of the pan and it looks pretty good and smells even better. Now I have to wait a bit for it to cool before I cut into it to taste the results.

The dough/batter was very thick (I used buttermilk). The resulting bread was very tasty, though. It is a fairly dense loaf (sorta the texture of a zucchini bread or something). Definitely something I'll make again, especially when you factor in that it takes no time at all to make. I'll certainly try his 'light' version too (using an egg, honey and part AP)

My version with the yogurt/sour cream mix turned well too. I think it would be great with some nuts and/or dried fruit added too.

eta: Had some more of the bread today and it has some sweetness to it. I have it stored in a large ziploc and it is very moist.

Made the 'lighter' version of this today, which subsitutes honey for molasses, some white for wheat flour and adds one egg. Delicious-- even better than the all wheat/molasses one. Again, super quick to make.

eta: Damn, I just ate two more pieces of this. Really good. Like mdt mentioned, these breads bake up very moist, so double check that the inside is done. You may need to turn down the oven at the end to avoid burning the outside but letting the inside bake a bit more.

This a picture of the 'lighter' version. I really like the texture the egg adds.

Much more of an open crumb than the original.

Thanks for posting this, Chris. A loaf of the lighter version is cooling in my kitchen now - can't wait to taste it. I made it tonight instead of the following (recipe from Gourmet magazine):

Irish Brown Bread

Whisk together 2c whole wheat flour, 2 c all purpose flour, 1/2 c toasted wheat germ, 2 t salt, 2 t sugar, 1 t baking soda, and 1/2 t cream of tartar. Blend in 1/2 c cold butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 2 c buttermilk, mix until dough forms, and gently knead on floured surface until smooth (using more flour if needed).

Place dough in a buttered 9" round cake pan, score the top lightly, and bake in a 400 degree oven 30-40 min. It will be light brown on top and sound hollow when the bottom is tapped. Cool in the pan 10 minutes, then out of the pan and on a rack one hour.

I cut leftovers into thick slices, wrap in foil and freeze - keeps well up to two months - and pop into a warm oven for awhile to reheat.

I finally made this bread yesterday, the lighter honey version and using buttermilk. I used a pyrex pan instead of nonstick, though, and despite my having greased the pan fairly well (I thought), part of the bottom stuck to the pan . The flavor and texture of the loaf itself were quite acceptable. I added 1/4 cup of currants to the batter and thought that worked well.

The bread was good for dinner, served with an herb-crusted pork loin stuffed with prunes.

I’m making biscuits tonight. Three questions:

Mktye: What’s the name of that substitution website you mentioned? I promise! I’ll bookmark it five seconds after a reply is posted.

Buttermilk: I don’t keep milk, let alone buttermilk, in the house. I do, however, have non-fat dried milk. Can I “sour” non-fat dried milk with lemon juice or vinegar the same as regular milk?

Angel biscuits: One of the PBS cooking shows used yeast and baking powder & soda for their angel biscuits. I thought angel biscuits were the result of the type of flour used. Has anyone used the yeast and baking soda & powder method with AP flour? How do they compare to the baking soda & powder and Wondra method? Does anyone have a tried-and-true recipe for the yeast variety?

The other interesting tip from this show: roll out the dough 1/3 inch and then fold it over. Cut the biscuits from the “doubled” dough. It'll produce an easily seperated biscuit. But y’all probably knew that already.

Okay, <deep breath>, at the risk of offending someone: these so-called angel biscuits that use yeast ARE NOT BISCUITS. They're dinner rolls. Y'know what? They taste really, really good, and they're nice and light, but because of the yeast THEY'RE DINNER ROLLS. Yeah, okay, I'm more opinionated than usual about this. If you want biscuits, cut butter into flour mixed with baking powder or soda or cream of tartar BUT NOT YEAST, stir in buttermilk, knead lightly etc etc and you'll have good biscuits.

My mother made these angel biscuit things many times in the last two years of her life, and all of us loved them, but all of us said THESE ARE GREAT DINNER ROLLS.

Seriously: biscuits are quick breads, meaning something other than yeast is providing the leavening.

If you really want to make so-called angel biscuits I will dig the recipe out and post sometime Sunday. They're tres tasty. But they ain't biscuits. They taste very distincly like... dinner rolls.

Cook's Thesaurus

A bit apathetic about this, huh?

I think I just needed a good rant at the end of a long coupla days. [that's a 'laughing at myself' emoticon]

Better yet, keep dried buttermilk on hand. I'm not sure of the shelf life of this. I keep my open cannister in the refrigerator, but I probably should be replacing it at some point.

Made my first attempt at the no-knead bread and I am absolutely amazed at how good it is. I wish I had a camera because it is gorgeous. Thick, crisp crust with wide open crumb and a nice chew. I noticed that Cook's Illustrated has a version this month that subs beer for some of the water to enhance the flavor. I'm going to give that a shot this weekend.

Two years ago I vowed to make poolish and finally got around to it this week. I purchased Daniel Leader's Bread Alone before The Bread Baker's Apprentice replaced it in popularity and never tried more than the quick breads before.

I made the Norwegian cracked wheat bread, if in sandwich loaf pans since I cracked my pizza stone recently and don't have willow baskets to help shape boules. I had to substitute a few of the ingredients required by a hardcore advocate of organic flours, such as fully milled rye instead of cracked rye kernels, and a combination of bulgur and farro processed in my spice grinder for the cracked wheat.

Let the poolish (biga) bubble for nearly 10 hours and fermented the dough in the fridge overnight. Squirting cold water into the hot oven twice at the beginning of the baking process served to form the crust.

Quite pleased with the loaf I kept. The flavor isn't as developed as I wanted it to be. However, the somewhat drawn-out process contributed to a crumb that you don't always get w such a large percentage of whole grain flour. Chewy. The cracked farro rolled into the crust is rather cool, too.

Very funny rant, P. Heads up: The January issue of Gourmet features a previously unpublished essay that Edna Lewis wrote on the South and dedicates the rest of the contents to her subject. A recipe for biscuits is included, though I don't think it asks you to make your own leavening agent the way she does.

Reporting back on the CI variation. It swaps 3 oz of water for beer and a tablespoon of vinegar. They claim that by adding 15 seconds of kneading, you can reduce the sitting time from 18 hours to 8-12 hours. The 18 hours worked better for my schedule so I didn't bother. I did notice a subtle flavor enhancement but since I'm not a beer type it seemed like a waste of most of a beer for only subtle improvement.

I split this batch in half and baked in a 2.5 quart. Much better size for my solo consumption. Second loaf in the freezer.

jparrot -- I tried this as french toast and you are correct, it was great.

I haven't tried the CI version, but I do like their idea of the parchment paper 'sling' for transferring the bread to the pot. Trying to throw the bread into a hot dutch oven was always a bit tricky. Instead, CI suggests letting the bread rise on a piece of parchment paper in a pan. Then you just transfer the bread along with the parchment paper both into the pot.

It definitely made the transfer easier. I wondered what it would do shapewise because of the inevitable folds of the paper. The loaves just had a few small waves.

Looking for a sandwich bread recipe that does not use yeast. Sandwich bread, not quick bread or sourdough, Is there such a thing?

Search for a salt-rising bread. That should work.

I made the recipe for Pluckets (Monkey Bread) from the Baker's Odyssey for breakfast on Saturday. I think that this is soon going to become a staple in our house, it was easy to put together, and quite fun to eat.

Never mind. Giving up on quest for stand-by recipe.