Open Sesame is a fun monthly event hosted by Dhivya of DK’s Culinary Bazaar and Siri of Siri’s Corner. Each month you pick a box (virtually), you’re sent a riddle to crack (it indicates a culinary ingredient) and once you crack it, you’re to post something made out of it in the last week of the month. I cracked my riddle but that wasn’t enough. I had to plead with Siri for the other riddles to crack just for the heck of it. It was too much to hold my curiosity till the end of month!!!
The riddles are designed by Dhivya – entirely on her own. I picked a box of wheat and here’s the apparently riddled prose for “wheat”:
I am as old as you can think of me to be
Thought to be originated from the land of camels
I am breakfast, lunch and dinner for all to see
Or be it desserts from cakes , pies to caramels
I am famous all over the world from east to west
As breads, flatbreads , cookies to muffins
I am v healthy and like a treasure chest
For ppl – weight conscious and its healthy kins
Buckle up and take a pen and a paper
I am yellow when alive, brown when put to ‘dust’
Eating me makes you look so dapper
Now think hard and tell me what is that grain that we all genuinely trust
Not really that difficult to guess – breads, flatbreads, cookie, muffins – flours used are all usually wheat products.
I made no knead bread over the weekend. I made two versions, one with 100% All purpose flour (super refined wheat flour) and one with 100% Whole Aheat Atta (finely ground whole wheat flour). I preferred the flavour of the Whole Wheat No knead bread to the one made with All purpose flour.
The original recipe is from New York Times who’ve adapted from Jim Laney, Sullivan Street Bakery. I used active dry yeast, I have not come across instant yeast in stores in India and added a whole lot of honey. I like my bread to be mildly sweet. The recipe is a super star – we need to create a special badge and paste it all over. I adore this bread so much. Its got a beautiful crust that’s crisp but not hard, it has a flavour of its own and it looks completely rustic. I’d keep it as a centerpiece if I could find a way to preserve it. It’s so beautiful.
100% All Purpose Flour No Knead Bread
100% Whole Wheat No Knead Bread
Ingredients for 100% Whole Wheat No Knead Bread (Yields: a little over 1/2 pound loaf)
- Whole Wheat Atta – 1.5 cups
- Water – 1 cup
- Active Dry Yeast – 1/2 tsp
- Honey – 4 tbsp
- Salt – 3/4 tsp
- Cornflour or Wheat Bran or Semolina as required
Ingredients for 100% All purpose flour No Knead Bread (Yields: a 1 1/2 pound loaf)
- All purpose flour – 3 cups
- Water – 1.5 cup (plus 2-3 tbsp more when whisking flour into dough)
- Active Dry Yeast – 1/2 tsp
- Honey – 6 tbsp
- Salt – 1 1/4 tsp
- Cornflour or Wheat Bran or Semolina as required
Method
- Warm the water. You should be able to dip your finger in the water. Dissolve half of the honey. Add active dry yeast and let it stand for 5 minutes until yeast frothes. Dissolve yeast.
- Combine Flour and salt in a bowl.
- Add flour mix and remaining honey to the dissolved yeast in cup measures and whisk it with a spoon or your hand into a sticky loose dough. The dough will look messy. As long as the flour comes together into one misshapen ball its fine. Cover with a plastic wrap or a cloth and let the dough rest for 16-20 hours.
- The dough is ready when it is dotted with bubbles on top. Flour your work surface. Wet your hands and transfer dough to the work surface. The dough will be very sticky. Using cold water to wet your hands helps. Stretch the dough and fold it over itself twice. Cover with cloth or plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
- Flour your surface again if necessary and dust the dough as little. Shape the dough. Tucking the edges under the dough helps achieve a fairly round shape.
- Coat a cotton towel with cornflour, wheat bran or semolina. Be generous. Place cotton towel in a deep container. Transfer dough and let it rise for 2 hours. Dough will look taut when ready but will not spring back when poked with a finger.
- About 30 minutes before the dough is ready to be baked, place a stainless steel, ceramic, cast iron deep pot in the oven and preheat oven to 220- 230 C.
- Remove pot from the oven when the dough is ready. Flour the pot lightly or line it if you’re using stainless steel. Slide your hand under the towel and dump dough into the pot seam side up. It will looks messy – it shaped out rather well it it self. Shake to even the dough out.
- Bake covered for 30 minutes at 220-230C. Bake uncovered for an additional 15-30 minutes at 220-230C until the bread is browned. Cool on a rack.
100% All Purpose Flour No Knead Bread Texture
100% Whole Wheat No knead bread texture
Notes:
- If you’re looking for an airy 100% wheat bread, then this is it. It has lots of holes and is much much more flavourful than a regular bread.
- I used the same size pot for both the AP flour bread and the Wheat bread although the Wheat bread dough was almost half. Big mistake. Use a deep narrow enough pot for bread that has height. The bread’s diameter will match that of your pot and if you want a good rise use an appropriately sized pot.
- Wheat dough takes more time to rise and form bubbles – about 4 hours more in my experience. Its much more flavourful. Wait patiently for the wheat dough to wake up. You will relish it.
- I over dosed on flouring the towel the first time while baking the AP flour bread. Result is a cracked crust on top although I din’t score the bread. The balance of flour to water needs to uniform and maintained well.
I made grilled sandwich out of the AP flour bread and had the Wheat bread dipped in Salsa sauce and with some jam.