Jim Lahey is rightly famous for two things: his incredible bread and pizzas at The Sullivan Street Bakery; and his no-knead bread recipe. Lahey’s new book, My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method combines the two into a serious contender for the ultimate bread bible. He’s updated the no-knead technique for even better results, and reveals how to make Sullivan Street classics like the pizza bianca in your home oven. The key to his technique is letting the bread proof for an extraordinary 12-18 hours, which results in a complex crumb and sophisticated flavor that ordinary proofing times can’t deliver. The second element is a very wet dough which bakes inside a dutch oven, steaming the bread so it can fully rise before the crust forms. Professional bakers achieve this same effect with expensive steam-injection ovens – Lahey’s method uses time, extra water and a pot. Pretty clever – and it really does produce an incredible bakery-quality loaf. A lot of people are turned off by baking – the complexity, the kneading, and the uncertain results are deal-breakers for a lot of people. This book should change a lot of minds.
