My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method

by Jim Lahey, Rick Flaste (Editor), Martha Stewart (Foreword by)

Overview

Named a Best Bread Cookbook by Food & Wine

Jim Lahey returns with a 15th-anniversary edition of his classic cookbook—featuring five unmissable new recipes.

The secret to acclaimed baker Jim Lahey’s bread is slow-rise fermentation. As he revealed in 2009 with the publication of his now-classic cookbook My Bread, the amount of labor you put in totals five minutes: mix water, flour, yeast, and salt, and then let time work its magic, no kneading necessary. Whether preparing Lahey’s basic loaf or a variation—a peanut butter and jelly bread, a pecorino cheese loaf, pancetta rolls, a classic Italian baguette—the process couldn’t be more simple, or the results more inspiring.

In the fifteen years since My Bread’s publication, the no-knead bread technique has remained as life-changing as ever. Now, Lahey revisits his beloved cookbook and adds five never-before-published recipes, including a pistachio-goji bread and a foolproof way of making Panko breadcrumbs at home. Repackaged for a new generation, the 15th-anniversary edition of My Bread is as timely as ever, and will bring good bread making back into our lives—with minimal work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324076506
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/17/2024
Edition description:	15th Anniversary Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jim Lahey’s innovative no-knead bread recipe ignited a worldwide home-baking revolution when it was first published in the New York Times in 2006. The owner of the Sullivan Street Bakery and the author of My Pizza and The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook, Lahey has won two James Beard Awards, including the inaugural Outstanding Baker Award. He lives in New York City.

Rick Flaste served as the editor of the New York Times Dining Section at its inception, creating many of its acclaimed features. He has collaborated on numerous cookbooks and books.

Editorial Reviews

"The recipe that democratized bread-baking."

Peter Reinhart

"Jim Lahey, baker extraordinaire."

Martha Stewart

"The acknowledged master of bread, dough, and crust."

Anthony Bourdain

"Many of us began our baking careers with My Bread, which gives novices well-illustrated instructions….Mr. Lahey is one of the great free spirits of the baking world, and it’s fun to follow his imagination through this cookbook."

Wall Street Journal - Andrew Coe

"Jim Lahey is the creator of the famous no-knead dough technique… His cookbook teaches you how to nail this innovative bread-baking method and features tons of images and tips on what to do with all that bread you’ve baked but didn’t eat, such as making breadcrumbs from stale bread. This new 15th-anniversary edition also adds a few new recipes, plus a foreword by Martha Stewart."

Food & Wine

"[Lahey] can do wonders with flour and water."

Frank Bruni

"The greatest part about no-knead dough is that you aren’t limited to one type of bread. The same method can work for rustic loaves, boules, baguettes, and yes, even pizza dough."

J. Kenji López-Alt

"[Lahey’s no-knead] recipe . . . gets home bakers hooked on baking."

Francisco Migoya

"Still the go-to technique for home bread bakers."

New York Times

★ 09/01/2024

Almost 20 years ago, Lahey's original recipe for no-knead bread—which championed a technique of loosely combining dry and wet ingredients, a longer fermentation period, and the use of a cast-iron pot as the baking vessel—rocked the baking world. Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery in NYC, expanded on this approach to bread baking with the publication of My Bread in 2009. This 15th-anniversary edition, which includes everything in the original book plus five new recipes, is a much-welcome update. After covering his own entry into bread baking (much of which has its culinary roots in Italy), Lahey starts things off with his original, basic no-knead recipe, which becomes the template for a number of variations, including whole-wheat bread, rye bread, and cheese bread. Lahey also branches out into bread-adjacent territory, including pizza dough, tasty sandwich ideas, and recipes such as tomato bread soup and bread pudding tart to use up leftover bread. VERDICT Lahey's passion for great tasting bread and his easy, accessible recipes will inspire a new batch of bakers to try their hand at turning out artisanal quality bread at home.—John Charles

Library Journal

"Minimalist" New York Times food journalist Mark Bittman credits Jim Lahey with a historic breakthrough. "Innovations in bread baking," he wrote, "are rare. In fact, the 6,000-year-old process hasn't changed much since Pasteur made the commercial production of standardized yeast possible in 1859. The introduction of the gas stove, the electric mixer and the food processor made the process easier, faster and more. I'm not counting sliced bread as a positive step, but Jim Lahey's method may be the greatest thing since." In My Bread, New York baker Jim Lahey describes his discovery and development of no-knead bread and shares recipes for the method that revolutionized the bread-making world. Cutting-edge bread news.

Lahey offers a few spins on his flawless boule: carrot bread, coconut-chocolate bread, olive bread, fennel-raisin bread. And there are recipes for things to make with said bread, fresh and stale. But the second-best thing about this book is that Lahey demystifies the pizzas that made his name when he opened his first bakery in SoHo.
—The New York Times

Christine Muhlke

While the subtitle sounds like a late-night television infomercial, Lahey's quick bread-in-a-pot method garnered attention from foodies and critics after appearing in Mark Bittman's New York Times article. With co-writer Flaste, founding editor of the New York Times's dining section, Lahey, founder of the Sullivan Street Bakery and the New York pizzeria Co., presents his touted no-knead bread recipe, along with a collection of recipes building on the method. With only five minutes of labor (along with 12–18 hours of waiting/rising time), the authors promise the results of artisanal Italian-inspired bread. Lahey's down-to-earth tone and straightforward technique, along with instructional photographs lead home bakers through chapters including “Specialties of the House,” with such recipes as coconut-chocolate bread and pancetta bread; “Beyond Water,” breads made with carrot or apple juices and peanut butter; and “Pizzas and Foccacias,” featuring less-than-traditional toppings such as celery root, cauliflower and fennel pizzas. Additional sections on building sandwiches and what to do with stale bread—everything from soup to dessert—round out this innovative title. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"The secret to making a foolproof, nearly labor-free loaf that tastes as delicious as anything from a baker…[Lahey] is the most intuitive bread baker I have ever met."

Vogue - Jeffrey Steingarten

"Mr. Lahey's method is creative and smart…What makes Mr. Lahey's process revolutionary is the resulting combination of great crumb, lightness, incredible flavor—long fermentation gives you that—and an enviable, crackling crust, the feature of bread that most frequently separates amateurs from the pros…With just a little patience, you will be rewarded with the best no-work bread you have ever made."

New York Times - Mark Bittman

"Jim Lahey…opened the Sullivan St Bakery in 1994 selling breads that no one in the city had made before…Sullivan St became the name to look and ask for, and…became…the place to go for the incredibly airy, oil-brushed, lightly salted pizza Bianca, which is even better than that of the bakery in Rome's Campo de' Fiori."

The Atlantic - Corby Kummer