No-Knead Bread

MADDIE DAY: After the worst of the warm weather abated earlier this month, I had a hankering for fresh bread, and it was finally cool enough to contemplate baking. I wasn't really up for my usual whole wheat yeasted kneaded recipe, and my sourdough starter is dead, so I hunted down a slow-rise, no-knead artisanal bread recipe. 

It turned out to be easy to make. When the result was as pretty as it was tasty, I knew I wanted to share it here with all of you.

No Knead Bread

Adapted from NYT Cooking

Ingredients

3⅓ cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more for dusting

Generous ¼ teaspoon yeast

2 teaspoons kosher salt

Cornmeal or wheat bran, as needed

Directions

In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1½ cups/345 grams 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 (I turn on the light under the microwave and put the bread in the microwave, which keeps it gently warm and out of drafts). After twelve hours, I left mine overnight in the fridge and it came out fine. 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.

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. (I used my proofing bowl but it stuck a little trying to get it out.) Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours (I did 3 because the dough was cold from the fridge). When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

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 OK.

Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes.

Remove lid and bake another 15 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. 

Remove from pot and cool on a rack before slicing.

Isn't it pretty? 

The insides are chewy and the outside is crust. It sure goes well with butter!

Readers: If you are a bread maker, what kind do you bake? If not, what's your favorite bakery or memory of delicious fresh bread?

🥖🥖🥖

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Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.

Bread as Good as You Get in a Bakery -- Even A French One!

Out now!

Coming March 2014

Available as an ebook

By Peg Cochran

We have several "no knead" bread recipes already posted on the MLK.  Krista has posted two of them--one for white bread and one for rye.  Both are delicious!  I found this similar "Dutch oven" bread, as it is alternatively known, that calls for half white whole wheat flour.  White whole wheat flour is just as healthy as whole wheat--it is whole flour including the bran germ and endosperm--made from white wheat or "albino" wheat where the bran is lighter in color and milder in flavor.  

This bread has a nice chewy texture and a wonderfully crisp crust.  And it's terribly impressive when you serve it to friends.  We enjoyed ours with my chicken liver pate, a selection of cheeses and a nice bottle of red wine.  And it's really easy to make even for a bread "novice."

1 1/2 cups bread flour  (bread flour gives you a crisper crust)

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour

1 3/4 tsp. kosher salt (regular salt also works just fine)

1/2 tsp RAPID RISE yeast (Rapid Rise or Instant yeast does not need to be "proofed."

1 1/2 tablespoons of honey

Extra flour for dusting

Whisk together the flours, salt and yeast.  Add the honey and warm water (follow directions on yeast package--water should be around 120 degrees).

Stir.  (You can even use your hands!)  Dough will be "shaggy."  Place in bowl, cover with plastic wrap and keep in a warm place for 18 to 24 hours.  Dough will double or triple in size.

Dust your work surface with flour and dump out your dough.  It will be on the sticky side.  You can gather it into a ball or flatten it slightly and fold in thirds like a letter.  Dust a kitchen towel with flour and place your dough on it seam side down.  Cover with another towel and let rise for around two hours.

Meanwhile heat your oven to 475 degrees.  When it reaches that temperature, place a Dutch oven (including cover) on the rack.  My Le Creuset Dutch oven is from the 1970s so I'm not sure my knob is heat proof.  I just unscrew it for making the bread.  Later versions are supposedly safe up to 500 degrees.  Heat for 45 minutes and be really careful.  The pot will be HOT.

Remove pot and place dough seam side up.  Cover and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove the cover and bake another 10 to 15 minutes or until the top is nicely browned and crisp.  My oven runs hot so the bread is usually done in 30 minutes.  If you're not sure about your oven, invest in a thermometer.  

CAREFULLY remove the bread from the hot oven, cool slightly and enjoy! 

White whole wheat and bread flour combo

Whisk flours together

Dough will be "shaggy"

Preheat your Dutch oven--remove knob if not heat proof

Add dough seam side down

The delicious, crusty results!

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Homemade Artisanal Bread -- the Easy Way!

Let's be honest -- raise your hand if you have ever broken off or sliced a piece of bread to munch the minute you brought it home. Um, might there have even been a little munching in the car on the way home?

What is it about bread? It's great with butter, jam, ham, and this time of year -- apple butter! It's such a simple thing, really, but it's still a treat.

This whole bread thing started because my mother wanted a New York Rye. Those of you who live in big cities like New York and Chicago are thinking so buy her a loaf. What's the big deal?

Well, it's a one hour drive each way to the closet loaf of New York Rye. Yes, we do have bakeries, but they tend to bake things like Sunflower Seed-Spelt-Olive-Raisin-Whole Wheat Bread. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

In my experience (and I think most of us are authorities on bread, having eaten it most of our lives) the best bread has precious few ingredients. And really boring ones at that! Flour, salt, water, yeast. That pretty much covers it.

But in our busy lives, there are issues with baking our own bread. You have to plan ahead to buy bread flour and yeast for starters. It has to be kneaded. It has to rise. Then it has to be punched down and kneaded again. Then, heaven forbid, another rising! Seriously, who has time for all that?

For years I've gotten away with using a bread machine. (Shh, they'll never know if you take the bread out after the first rising, shape it and let it rise a second time before baking. It won't have that funky bread machine look. You can even make rolls that way!)

So as I was flipping through a Cook's Illustrated cookbook, I screeched to a dead stop when I saw Almost No Knead Bread. Was it possible? Cook's is an extremely reliable source. Hmm. So I tried. The first loaf, duly made with rye for my mother, was, well, edible if not exciting. So I went back and made the plain bread recipe.

I won't lie that it doesn't need to rise. It does. But you don't need bread flour, and it needs almost no kneading! That part is so true! Apparently this recipe originated with a baker named Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery. The New York Times published the recipe, and people have been tweaking it ever since.

Cook's added some ingredients. I particularly liked the addition of beer. I'm not quite convinced about the necessity of vinegar, though, especially since it's not in the original recipe. I will also add a touch more salt the next time I bake it. Cook's uses 1 teaspoon, Lahey used 1 1/4 and quite frankly, a teeny bit more salt would be good.

It's a very simple recipe. Honestly, the biggest chore for me was figuring out the timing. The first rising should be between 12 and 18 hours. If, like my mother, you're a morning baker, then you end up having to rush to do the second rising and the baking late in the evening. If you're a mid-morning baker, then you're looking at midnight. I found that by making the dough after dinner (and that part is so easy that it's really mindless), it can rise overnight and be baked the next day. Mine was ready by lunchtime. (With a little brie and an apple -- yum!)

There's nothing tricky about this recipe, which is what's so very lovely about it. I'm going to number the steps and hopefully have pictures of most of them.

I have a young cat who is obsessed with biting plastic, so I just popped the rising dough into the COLD oven for the night so I wouldn't have to worry about her attacking it. If you don't have a plastic-obsessed cat, you can leave it in a draft-free location at room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Almost No-Knead Bread

parchment paper
plastic wrap
kitchen towel
6 - 8 quart heavy covered pot (Dutch Oven) Note: This starts at a very high temperature. The original recipe preheats the oven only to 450. Be sure the handles on your pot can withstand high temperatures of 450 to 500.


3 cups plain flour + more for kneading
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast (that's not a typo 1/4 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mild beer (I used Heineken)
3/4 cup tepid water
1 tablespoon vinegar
additional water
Kosher salt

1. In the evening, place flour, yeast, and salt in a bowl and combine. Add beer, water, and vinegar and stir until blended. The dough will look shaggy. Cover with plastic wrap, slide into a cold oven and go to bed.

Mix ingredients.

Shaggy dough

2. 12 to 18 hours later the dough will appear bubbly. Pour a little flour on a work surface, turn the dough onto it and knead with the heel of your hand 12 to 15 times, folding it over onto itself.

Bubbly dough after 12 hours.

Knead lightly.

3. Tear off a good-sized chunk of parchment paper and deposit the dough, seam side down on the paper.


Cover with a kitchen towel and place in draft-free location while it rises, about two hours. (Note: after 1 1/2 hours you need to turn on your oven.)

Place on parchment paper.

4. Place the covered pot in the oven and preheat to 500 about 1/2 hour. The dough should have doubled in size. Brush the top with cold water and sprinkle with Kosher salt.

Brush with water and sprinkle with Kosher salt.

Lift it using the parchment paper and place it with parchment paper inside the HOT pot. Cover and place in the oven. Turn the temperature down to 450. Set timer for 30 minutes.

5. After 30 minutes, take the lid off of the pot. Bake another 20-30 minutes. The crust should be golden brown. Take care removing from hot pot. I found two spatulas were perfect for lifting it out.

Next attempt -- New York Rye!