Hole-ly Bread

[lattelover]

I bake my own bread and am pleased with the result, but I wish it had very large holes. Anybody know how I can get them?

[Antilope]

Make Bittman's No Knead Bread from the New York Times. It's a delicious, crusty bread with large holes:

Original NY Times article about No Knead Bread with recipe
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE7D6113FF93BA35752C1A9609C8B63

Article about fine tuning No Knead Bread
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/dining/06mini.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

YouTube Video showing how No Knead Bread is made
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU

Here are some Chowhound links

No Knead Bread - 1 year later
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/458377

Bittman's No Knead bread is out of the oven, anyone else?
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/341469

Here's some info about making bread with large irregular holes:

WINGBOY'S LOVELY HOLE-Y BREAD
http://www.shaboomskitchen.com/breadb...

[lattelover]

Thanks so much, antilope. I have been making the Bittman bread, but I must be overmixing. The wingboy thread was particularly enlightening. Getting ready to try some now!

[drgreg]

It didn't make sense until someone explained what was going on. The long rise makes a lot of gas bubbles and leavens the mixture. The recipe says to fold it over itself a couple of times before the second rise - this is to evenly disperse the gas bubbles. First few times I did this it really just was a fold over, and I got huge bubbles (which I wasn't happy with). So now I do a fold-over-flatten-out-fold-over-etc thing which makes it more even.

So no it's not over-mixing (which happens at the beginning before there is gas) but it could be over-folding before the second rise.

[lattelover]

Thanks. I was overfolding too!! I know I'm going to be much happier with my results with your suggestions. Thanks so much!