Strecca - no knead stick bread

Several months ago one of the food bloggers I follow, stresscake, posted a recipe for no-knead strecca. I've been wanting to try the no -knead method for a while, but lack the dutch oven that most recipes seem to call for. Here was an opportunity to try the no-knead method w/ shaped loaves that just call out to be slathered with brie, camembert, and a few olives on the side.

The basic idea is that the slow rise produces the gluten action that regular kneading does. After a 12-18 hour rise, you do some dough flopping, followed by another 1-2 hour rise, shaping and baking. (Please go to the link above for the full recipe, I don't have permissions to post it and am trying to be better about using other people's work!)

Step one was to mix the flour, water, salt, sugar, and yeast, cover it, and leave it be for 12-18 hours.

In retrospect, you can see that 18 hours in our warm temps is a bit over-proofed. In future I'll move onto the second step after 12 hours, or do the long rise in the fridge. The taste turned out fine, but I didn't get as much rise in the final loafs due to over proofing.

Step two was to pour the dough onto a floured surface, fold over a few time, cover with olive oil, drape w/ a well-floured tea towel, and let rise 1-2 hours.

Note: this is way too much flour. I had globs of olive oil soaked flour stuck to my loaves and had to cut them out. 

In the future, I'm ditching the tea towel and scratching the flour. This dough would have done much better in the 2nd rise if just places in a well-oiled bowl with plastic wrap over the top. Using the towel, I lost dough to the towel and I lost dough that mingled badly with the flour and olive oil.

Also, I had to let my second rise last 3 hours and could have gone longer if we weren't starving.

Step 3: stretch out into long sticks (I did 3 instead of 4), bush with olive oil, top with sea salt, pepper and desired toppings. I did sliced tomatoes, olives, and minced garlic.

After 15 min in the oven - Ta-da!

The flavor of the bread was fantastic. It really needs the final dose of olive oil, and generous salt and peppering - don't scrimp on that step. The flavor was a slight tang from the long rise and the texture of both the crust and the interior was just divine. I now want to buy the book and make more of these recipes.