Last week I mentioned my desire to make bread for the kids (and me, love my carbs!) but didn’t have the time to make the no knead recipe I’d seen by Mark Bittman in the NY Times.  It comes from the Sullivan St Bakery and found on their site.  Since I had planned it out this time around I could make it. 

I am not a huge baker and like to cook because I can improvise; in baking it’s very important to follow directions.  I guess I just have a hard time doing that, even here.  So, I decided to use 1/3 Spelt flour  and 2/3 unbleached wheat flour.  I also looked up some yeast starter recipes too becuase I love a good sour dough.  I didn’t have the time to let the yeast ferment but I started it ahead of the rest of the mixing.  I took 1/3 of the flour mixture, the yeast, one cup of water and a teaspoon of organic cane sugar.  I let it sit in a warm place in a glass container for a couple of hours.  Then I mixed the rest of the flour, salt and water in with my starter.  For the first 8 or so hours the day was warm and I let the dough rise in the calphalon dutch as directed, but when I woke up the next day to turn/pull it I noticed how the sudden temperature drop affected the rising, it had sunk a little. 

This is the pre-oven state.  It never regained that really puffy state because it wasn’t as warm, but when I got it out of the oven, saw the golden top, cut it, and smelled the waft of fresh yeasty bread, I was so thrilled.  The taste totally lived up to the sight and smell.  And my kids loved it!  So did everyone lucky enough to have a taste—a friend I brought a taste to, my husband and I.  

If you see from the recipe, it does not take a lot of hands-on time.  Plus you can give your kids the most wholesome hard-crusted, soft-centered bread without the unnecessary vitamins (if they eat well, you don’t need fortified bread, cereal, oj, etc, etc.) and other ingredients.

© 2010 mykidsreallyeatthis.com