First Post and a Bread Obsession

Hello and welcome! I'm Kaitlin and this is my first exploration into food blogging. I love all things cooking and baking, exploring new recipes, and trying new things, and I'm pretty sure my typical Facebook and Instagram followers are going to die if I keep posting food pictures. So here is my new outlet, and I hope you enjoy!

A few weeks ago, I decided I would take on the daunting task of bread baking.

Now I've spent years--YEARS--making banana breads, pumpkin breads, and other yeast-less loaves, but recently I felt the urge to challenge myself and take the plunge into baking "real" bread. I've been trying out different types of breads for the last few weeks and they've all turned out surprisingly well, except for this one. We're giving it a second try today.

I've made brioche with buttery success.
I've made 6-strand braided challah bread with giant, perfectly risen perfection.
I've created a delicious albeit overly salty focaccia with ease.
But this no-knead, rustic Italian crusty bread had me stumped (recipe credit to Ciao Florentina)

Dream loaf! How it SHOULD have turned out the first time.

And it's supposed to be easy! I can't stand it. I tried baking it on Christmas for my family. Our family Christmas tradition has always been that we eat spaghetti for dinner. It's random, and I love it, and now that I've gotten into bread baking I really wanted to contribute some nice, crusty bread to sop up all the tomato-y goodness. But it was a slight disaster. I got a little over-ambitious and dumped the dough into the proofing basket I got for Christmas, and later learned you shouldn't put wet/no-knead doughs into proofing baskets. They mean it, too...it took several hours to clean the darn thing!

Here I am with one more day off of work for winter break, so I decided to take another stab at it. The rise time isn't too bad, not a truly all day task like challah or brioche, so here we go.

OOPS! Ran out of flour partway through measuring and had to go to the grocery store. You live, you learn, you definitely appreciate living across the street from a Kroger.

Ingredients:
6 1/4 c all purpose flour
2 tsp sea salt
3 c warm water
1 package active dry yeast (1/4 oz)

Rise time: 2-3 hours
Bake time: 45m
Oven temp: 450F

1. Mix together your dry ingredients: flour, salt, and yeast
2. Pour in the warm water and keep mixing! I don't have an electric mixer so I do this all by hand. *Use a spatula and mix in a large mixing bowl, don't knead this one by hand--way too wet!
3. Once the ingredients have come together and formed a soft (and I mean soft!) dough, cover the bowl with cling wrap and a dish towel, and place in a warm spot to rise for about 2.5 hours. Here is what mine looked like at this point:

So! Sticky!

4. Preheat the oven to 450F with an empty pizza stone, cast iron skillet, or dutch oven inside, whatever you will be baking this bread in. Again, your bread dough does not go in the oven yet. You can also place a shallow dish in the oven with 1" of water in your oven to create steam. Having the dish preheated and using steam helps give it a nice, chewy crust.
5. Time to shape your dough! Sprinkle some flour onto your work surface (I just use the counter) and dump the dough onto it. Scrape out all the bits that stuck to the bowl with a spatula. Flour your hands, and fold the dough onto itself to make a ball. Don't over-handle it! Just enough to make the shape you need. This is a no-knead bread, after all. Cut a shallow X in the top of the dough and get your potholders ready for the next step...
6. Carefully C A R E F U L L Y take out your preheated pizza stone/skillet/etc. and place the dough on it.

Going into the oven

7. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown all over! It should sound hollow when thumped, and you can probably measure the internal temperature or something, but hey I'm new at this too so I just knock on it and listen for the "right" sound.

Finished product.... *drumroll please*

Perfectly crisp and chewy crust with a soft interior. Delicious!

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Wondering where my blog name comes from? If you know me personally, you're not wondering, because I'm probably one of the clumsiest people you've ever met. But if you haven't spent at least 5 minutes around me in real life, here is a pretty typical kitchen experience. This is the aftermath of my baking today--light dusting of flour for everyone, including the tomatoes, which have nothing to do with this recipe by the way. A little dollop of watery-yeasty mixture here and there, because I may or may not have launched some of the dough out of the bowl while mixing the wet and dry ingredients. Whoops. Welcome to my klutzy life!