I've been baking since childhood, and a bread baker on and off. I have valiantly been chasing that elusive bakery crust. I've used cornstarch on the outside or egg white wash. I've come close by spraying the bread a few times while its in the oven. THIS WEEK, I tried Jim Lahey's method of baking in a dutch oven and OHMYGOD it's like artisan bakery bread! I've used wet doughs before, but they never came out quite like this. And I made this bread twice, to make sure that the first one was not just a fluke.
This bread comes out chewy, with big moist holes and a thick and crunchy crust.
So what's different from my previous attempts:
- I went by weight, rather than by feel or measure.
- I let it rise significantly longer on the first rise (16-18 hours)
- Baked it in a dutch oven.
- I tried this both with all purpose flour as well as bread flour (King Arthur of course). While both were good, the bread flour rose more. That could also be because the first loaf of all purpose was on a linen towel as was recommended, and even though I thought I floured it well, it apparently wasn't good enough and the dough stuck to the towel when I flopped it into the dutch oven and deflated the loaf somewhat.
So very happy that after 35 + years of making bread, I finally was able to bake the loaf of my dreams. And no kneading.