Jim Lahey and I Answer ALL Your Bread Questions
Jim Lahey and I Answer ALL Your Bread Questions
First things first: in recent days and weeks, we have all, no doubt, come across many things to read – articles, op-eds, corporate stances, political statements, Twitter threads – that speak in really important, new, and/or interesting ways about the moment we're in. I'm compiling a few of mine over at Heated. If you're interested, you can check them out here.
A few weeks ago, renowned bread baker Jim Lahey and I put out a call on Instagram for any questions that you may have about baking bread (or pizza). We'd been getting so many messages individually that we figured we should team up and try to answer as many questions as we possibly could.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Jim, he's baking royalty. He founded Sullivan Street Bakery in New York, and is the one who came up with the legendary recipe for no-knead bread (below), which I wrote about in the New York Times back in 2006. As Jim once wrote to me in an email about that bread, "The method is surprisingly simple. I think a 4-year-old could master it — and the results are fantastic.” This is an understatement; the no-knead method transformed bread baking for the home cook forever.
Anyway, people asked a ton of great questions (about no-knead, bread in general, flour, crackling crust, open crumb, yeast, sourdough, pizza, and a whole lot more). Jim and I answered them in a marathon Instagram story, but compiled all the answers on Heated so they wouldn't disappear forever (although I did save them in my Instagram highlights, too).
If you have any particular baking questions, check out the article below. If we've addressed them, wonderful. If not, you can let us know in the comments. Even if you don't have anything to ask, I guarantee you that reading through the Q&A will make you a smarter baker (plus, Jim is a bread genius and his passion is infectious; if you're interested in baking, I think you'll really enjoy reading what he has to say).
—Mark
Talk To Me, Goose!
Questions, comments, brilliant suggestions? Just want to share the recipe for your grandma's potato salad, or your mom's meatloaf, or your uncle Drew's three-day 100-percent rye loaf (yes, please)? Don't hesitate to reach out anytime.