Have I mentioned it's hot? It's really too hot to bake. But it's also too hot to cook. And it's a whole lot easier to have a quick sandwich for lunch or dinner than to deal with even the lightest of chopping or boiling or stir-frying. So, because it's also too hot to even go grocery shopping, I decided that baking in the air conditioning using the convection oven to minimize heat made the most sense. I think I chose correctly.
I've shied away from breads that required kneading and have become a bit of a one-trick pony with my no-knead bread. I came across a recipe at a clean eating blog that I enjoy, Clean Eating Machine. With a short list of ingredients, the title of clean eating and a not-so-lengthy amount of rising time, this seemed like the one to try.
A loaf before baking - on it's last rise.A couple of thoughts:
- The original recipe calls for a small bowl. You're adding 3 cups of flour and 1 3/4 cups of water to this bowl and letting it double in size. Use a large bowl.
- The dough is very sticky. There wasn't a lot of discussion about flouring your kneading surface or adding extra flour. I did a less robust kneading job in the bowl (again, large is very good here) to minimize mess and avoid adding more flour.
- If you do use a mini-oven like my toaster/convection oven, a traditional loaf pan is a little large, so the top browns more than it should. A small price to pay for fresh bread in this ungodly heat.
Clean Eating Whole Wheat Bread (adapted from Clean Eating Magazine)
- 3 cups white whole wheat flour (whole wheat is also fine)
- 1 3/4 cups water
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp honey
- Mix flour, water and yeast in a bowl. Let rise until double in size, about 30 minutes.
- Add remaining ingredients and knead well. (Note: I used the kneading process to incorporate the wet ingredients and then just kept kneading for a bit). Let rise for 30 minutes.
- Knead one more time. Place in standard loaf pan and let rise until it fills the pan (for me it was more like 15 or 20 minutes, but did I mention that it's hot?).
- Bake at 350F for 40 minutes or slightly less in a convection oven (mine was done after 30-35).