Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Moroccan Country Bread

This is another very easy bread recipe that I came across in the latest issue of Cooking Light, and I thought I'd give it a shot.  It came out very well, even though it got messed up a little bit.  Let me explain.  I started out following the recipe, but had to veer off a bit when it came to the rising and baking of the bread.  Cooking Light states to place all three loaves of bread on a single baking sheet to rise.  After thirty minutes, my bread loaves had all risen to the point that they were completely smooshed against the sides of the pan and each other.  So I had to gingerly try to move the loaves onto their own baking sheets, which caused them to deflate a bit.  Then, in the baking process, I had dinner in the oven at 375 degrees, so I just put the first loaf in at that temperature, for about 23-24 minutes, rather than at 350 degrees for 30 minutes as the recipe calls for.  And in the end, the bread still came out as a very softly crusted, but very tasty bread.  Also, Cooking Light claims this is a "no-knead" bread, but I'd have to disagree.  The recipe does say to beat the bread in an electric mixer until it forms a ball – this took 3-4 minutes in my kitchenaid.  That is pretty much like kneading it by hand for 6-8 minutes!  It was still easier than a full fledged kneaded bread, but not quite as easy as Bittman's bread!

1 comment:

Calypso said...

I just made the bread, and I ended up accidentally/on purpose making some changes as well. I was still quite pleased with the results, though...