Whole wheat (épeautre) bread using
flour milled at the farm up the road.
Have you ever been intrigued by a recipe? Before the internet age often my bedtime reading included reading recipes as it was up there with literature as it had artistic merit which generated my imagination beyond the table and chair and or bed which I sit licking my lips.
As the years have gone by I find myself watching cooking videos versus reading cookbooks a few days ago I came across "Jenny Can Cook" & her straightforward recipes, her humor, and a bread recipe that made me question my wildest memories of baking … no kneading?
I had to give it a try.
My earliest bread making days were when I was in my early twenties living in a monastery. During the times when I wasn't praying or in meditation, or sleeping I was assigned to work in the kitchen with Jack the monk although he looked more like Jack the Giant with a full head of hair. Jack and I saw cooking on different levels, he was pragmatic and ran the kitchen like a business, I was a kid who was let into a candy shop but who was a strict vegetarian, with an Abbot who ate raw hamburger with an uncooked egg on top. I read recipes to be inspired but never followed them, and then prayed my strongest prayers that what I was making would turn out. It never occurred to me that if what I made flopped sixty-plus faithful people in my ability to cook might go hungry. The funny thing is when the Abbot asked me if I could cook I said yes, first non-truth told the second was when he asked who could cut hair and I raised my hand and was assigned as the monastery's hairdresser too. Monastic life is based on love and forgiveness, I certainly put that to the test.
Following Jenny’s No knead bread exactly.
One of my favorite things to do in the monastery's kitchen was to make was bread and cinnamon rolls while pretending in my head that I was Julia Childs in front of a TV camera, in the monastery we only watched the news in the evening, so this was my form of entertainment and yet I do not remember Julia ever praying to God that what she was making would turn out. I swear I would hear God say to me, "Corey, focus, write what you are doing so that the next time you bake your Hail Mary Bread you do not need to call on me."
How dare that upstairs person!
Nothing ever flopped, the bread rose, the cinnamon rolls made mouths water and I miraculously stayed out of trouble serving tofu.
Anyway, Jenny Can Cook’s homemade bread is an answer to anyone who finds making bread daunting no matter how many prayers or glasses of wine one needs to consume.
Jenny’s no knead bread is flawless
s i m p l e
to make is
is an understatement.
A gluten-free bread made with chestnut, quinoa, and buckwheat tastes very earthy.
I used Jenny's recipe only I used one teaspoon of yeast since the flour on both of these was heavier.
Jenny Can Cook recipe and videos below.
- 3 cups (360-390 g /12 3/4 ounces) all-purpose or bread flour (aerate flour before measuring - See How)
- 1/4 teaspoon yeast, active dry or instant (1 g)
- 1 teaspoon salt (6 g)
- 1 1/2 cups hot water, not boiling (354 mL) – I use hot tap water – about 125-130° F
- (about 2 Tablespoons extra flour for shaping)
- Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Stir in water until it’s well combined.
- Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 3 hours.
- After 3 hours dough will become puffy and dotted with bubbles. Transfer it to a well-floured surface and sprinkle dough with a little flour. Using a scraper fold dough over 10-12 times & shape it into a rough ball.
- Place in a parchment paper-lined bowl (not wax paper) and cover with a towel. Let stand on countertop for about 35 minutes.
- Meantime place Dutch oven with lid in a cold oven and preheat to 450° F. My oven takes 35 minutes to reach 450°.
- When the oven reaches 450° carefully, using oven gloves, lift the parchment paper and dough from the bowl and place gently into the hot pot. (parchment paper goes in the pot too) Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, remove the lid and parchment paper. Return, uncovered, to oven, and bake 10 – 15 more minutes. Let it cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing.
No Dutch Oven? Didn't Turn Out? Other Questions? Click here.
Want It Faster? Click here for my 2-HOUR No-Knead Bread.
Aerating and Sifting is Not The Same: Click here to learn more.
Thank you Jenny!
PS Do not ask me for the recipe of the Hail Mary Bread/ cinnamon rolls as it is one of the sacred mysteries that remains buried within me bringing me faith when I am in doubt. How did I ever dare to bake cinnamon rolls for breakfast for a retreat of over a hundred people? I am not even a morning person… and I lived in a monastery that woke up with bells calling us to prayer.
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