No-Knead Bread

bread2

I’ve seen more than one blog in the past few weeks with a no-knead bread post.  I read one recipe around 11 AM the other day and thought, “This sounds great!  I will make it tonight!”  but then I saw that it has to rise for 12-18 hours.  Well.  Unless I wanted to eat fresh bread at 2AM, it wasn’t going to happen that day.  So, I got up with Ben at 5:45 the next morning and made bread dough.  I didn’t have any bread flour, so I used a recipe that calls for all purpose flour.  I used this recipe from motherearthnews.com, and substituted 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour for 1/2 cup of the all purpose.  

The dough is so easy is mix up.  4 ingredients in a bowl.  

dough

Mix.  Cover with plastic wrap and forget about it for half the day.  It doesn’t get much easier than that.  After the 12 hour rise it looked good.

dough2

After a bit of kneading, a sprinkle of cornmeal and an additional hour, it looked unchanged…hmm.  I decided to move ahead with the baking even though possible failure was in my future.

dough3dough4

Ta-da!  It isn’t the prettiest loaf of bread, but it tasted good.  I loved the nice crunchy exterior and even ate just the crusty goodness of one piece with some butter.  Yum.

bread

No Knead, Dutch Oven Bread

  • 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting. You may use white, whole wheat or a combination of the two.
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • Cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting
  1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at least 8 hours, preferably 12 to 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
  2. The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
  3. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently shape it into a ball. Generously coat a clean dish towel with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal. Put the seam side of the dough down on the towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another towel and let rise for about 1 to 2 hours. When it’s ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
  4. At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and lift off the lid. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. The dough will lose its shape a bit in the process, but that’s OK. Give the pan a firm shake or two to help distribute the dough evenly, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect; it will straighten out as it bakes.
  5. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.