No-knead Bread

I finally gathered the ingredients and necesary cookware to make this bread. The recipe was in Cook's Illustrated magazine and claimed to produce the kind of wonderful bread you get from a bakery. My friend Karen emailed me that she had made it and suggested alternatives to the instant yeast and cast iron Dutch oven I didn't have. The recipe uses beer, which I don't drink, and I almost gave up because I coundn't find a place that would sell just one beer. Thom solved that problem by donating a bottle to the cause.

For the Dutch oven I substituted a cast iron frying pan, a legacy from my mother, and an upside down pie plate. For instant yeast, I used quick-rising yeast left from my bread machine days. The dough was wet and had to rise for 18 hours, plus two more in the pan. What inconvenience that caused was made up for by the ease of mixing. It took less than ten minutes to put together and the rest is history. It is by far the best bread I have ever made, even though I left it in the oven too long without the cover. I followed the directions, but next time I'll watch it more closely. I have already eaten most of this loaf, which came out of the oven only an hour ago. Bakery bread is sometimes as good as this, but not often. It was two weeks in the making, and worth everything I had to do to get it.

I'm going to start another loaf.