Editor’s note: Paul Stancioff is associate professor of physics at the University of Maine at Farmington. He also likes to make almost-no-knead bread and thinks you should, too. In his words, here are five good reasons to make your own.
1. I make bread because, for me, bread is about two things — a good crust and a good crumb. I found a couple of recipes — one for a boule and one for baguettes — that reliably produce a crust that I really like. The crust is the most important. The crumb usually follows.
2. I would not make bread if it were time consuming. The breads I make are very simple and require a minimal amount of working time. For the boules it’s maybe 10 minutes of working time once you get a system down. This includes clean-up. The baguettes take a little more time, but not much.
3. That said, however, if it’s noon, and you want the bread tonight, you are about a day late in getting started. The reason my bread requires so little working time is that I use the almost-no-knead process. This requires long rise times, maybe 18-24 hours or more, for the dough to essentially knead itself. Plan ahead.
4. It is about one-tenth the cost of store-bought bread.
5. You always have fresh bread, and you are popular at potlucks.
Photo credit: Image by fancycrave1 from Pixabay