There are few things I like more than a really good crusty bread. I like to bite down and see a shower of crumbs crackle down into my lap. Even though I’ve made two loaves now, I’m still having a hard time believing that I can have this kind of bread in my house all the time now, and that the process for making it is so incredibly simple.

Don’t be intimidated by the amount of time it takes to make this loaf. From start to finish the process is 24 hours, but you really only have about 30 minute (maybe even less) of hands on work. The rest of the time is spent letting the yeast/gluten do it’s thing.

No-Knead Bread

Via The NYT

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. 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 rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

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Still feeling intimidated? Don’t worry, I’ve got some pictures for you so you can see how easy the process is!

First, combine all of the ingredients.

When it’s completely mixed you will be left with a very sticky, very wet dough.

Cover, and let rise for somewhere around 18 hours.

When you take off the cover you should find a big puffy mass of dough filled with little bubbles.

Lightly flour your work surface. Is this lightly floured? I’m not quite sure, but the amount seems to be working for me.

Turn your bowl of dough upside down and plop it right on top of the flour.

The first time I made this bread I scraped the remnants of dough out from the bowl. This time I didn’t do that.

Sprinkle the top with some flour.

Put some flour on your hands (this is extremely sticky dough) and fold the dough over onto itself two times. Cover with saran wrap, and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Remove the saran wrap. Take a cotton towel (make sure it’s cotton) and lay it next to the dough, cover it with flour.

Here is the step that I’m really bad at, but it seems to work out okay in the end.

With your hands covered in flour, pick up the ball of dough, shape it into a ball, and place it onto the flour covered towel. Sprinkle some flour on top and cover the dough completely with the cotton towel.

No matter how much flour I have on my hands, or how quickly I try to do this, my dough always ends up falling onto the towel in a big blob. So don’t despair if that happens to you as well. It will still taste delicious.

Let dough rise for at least 2 hours.

Want to know a secret? I let this batch of dough rise for 4.5 hours! I went shopping and was out longer than I though. It turned out fine.

30 minutes before the dough is done rising (so usually at the 1.5 hour mark if you are letting it rise for 2 hours), place your pot, with lid on, in a 450 degree oven.

How does your dough look? It should be a nice puffy ball.

Here is where I run into major problems each time. Anyone who has made this bread before know what I am doing wrong?

Take your cotton towel, and turn it upside down to dump the dough into the pot. My dough always sticks to the towel really bad, and I end up having to scrape it off with my fingers.

See how much is left stuck to the towel?

Once I’m able to get it loose from the towel, it plops down into a big blob like this. So much for carefully shaping it into a pretty mound of dough earlier.

But I keep my chin up each time, cover the pot with the lid, and put it all in the oven for 30 minutes.

At the end of 30 minutes I take the lid off and find a pretty loaf of bread! I put the pot back in the oven for another 15 minutes or so to let the loaf get all nice and golden brown.

If I can successfully make this bread (twice!) I know you can too. Try it!

Thanks to Cecy for encouraging me to give this a try!

Tags: baking

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