Altitude really does make a difference when baking.
Also, for a more flavorful bread try refrigerating it for a couple of days. Yeast produces different byproducts depending on the temperature it ferments at. So dough formed with a warm ferment ends up with a sour, yeasty off-flavor, as opposed to the richer, maltier aromas you get from bread fermented at cooler temperatures. Giving lean doughs a stay in the fridge for three to five days can massively increase its flavor and its performance. Same goes for the no-knead bread.
After allowing it to rise at room temperature overnight, Stick it directly into the refrigerator for three days. There’s another advantage built into this as well: cold dough is much easier to handle. Gluten gets stiffer as it cools, which means that refrigerated dough will be much simpler to shape into a ball or a long loaf, or whatever shape you wish to bake it in.
After shaping, cover is with a bowl or a flour-coated kitchen towel and let it rise at room temperature for a couple of hours to take the chill off it and leaven for the final time before slashing it with a sharp knife (this allows it to expand faster in the Dutch oven, and makes it look pretty), and baking.
Ingredients:
- 3 c bread flour
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- scant 1/4 tsp instant (rapid rise) yeast
- 1 4/3 c room temperature water
Directions:
- Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
- Add 1 3/4 cups tepid (warm room temperature) water and stir until blended. Dough will be sticky and shaggy, but will come together in a rough ball.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let rest at room temperature (68-70 degrees) for 12-15 hours. When dough is ready, it will have roughly doubled in size and surface will be dotted with bubbles. Note: High gluten content in your bread flour is essential at high altitude. Do *not* substitute all-purpose or whole grain flours unless you add additional wheat gluten. Note: Don’t be tempted to skimp on the salt. It turns out it’s important.
- Dump dough out of bowl onto lightly-floured work surface.
- Fold it over itself a few times.
- Sprinkle with flour, cover with saran wrap, and let rest 10-15 minutes
- Using just enough flour (really, the least you can get away with) to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball.
- Generously coat a silpat or non-terry cotton towel with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal.
- Put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal.
- Cover with an oiled piece of saran wrap covered with a second, damp cotton towel. (This is to make up for the fact that air pressure is less at altitude.)
- Let rise for about 1 1/2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
- At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees.
- Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats.
- When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven.
- Slide your hand under towel or silpat and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.
- Cover with lid and bake 45 minutes, then check the temperature of the bread.
- Remove lid and cook for up to another 15 minutes, until bread reaches an internal temperature of 210 degrees. Note: Mine got stuck at just over 200 degrees, but I took it out after about 55 minutes anyway because, well, it just seemed done.
- Remove bread from oven and cool on a rack until it reaches nearly room temperature before you cut into it. (This keeps it from drying out.)
- Enjoy!
Serves: one 1 1/2 lb loaf
Source: Cooking at 5280 – Denver Calibrated Cooking Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery, via Mark Bittman at The New York Times
