The Quest is Over: No-Knead Bread

I spent the past year baking a lot of yeast breads. I baked bread almost every Sunday, even in the summer. You wouldn’t know it, though, because a bare few of the recipes landed here. All of my experiments were edible, but only some were delicious. That’s partly because I spent half of the year trying to perfect a formula for Peter Reinhart’s Multigrain Bread Extraordinaire in the hopes of sharing it with you, but it never quite panned out. It looked stringy or it baked up with a giant bubble inside or we ate too much before I could snap a photo.

It turns out, I was trying too hard. All I really needed to do was leave some flour, water and yeast in a bowl overnight.

The original recipe for this bread spawned a bloggy frenzy when it was published in 2006. That’s a lifetime ago in blog years, so fortunately for me, in 2010 the fabulous Nicole brought a loaf to the annual wear-elastic-waistband-pants Italian Feast hosted by my good friend’s Mom. Here’s about how the conversation went.

Everyone: “OMG, this bread is so good. Who brought this?”

Nicole: “I did.”

Everyone: “It looks homemade.”

Nicole: “Yeah, I made it.”

Everyone: “ZOMG, you MADE this? This is fabulous! It’s so moist and yet crusty!”

Nicole (sheepish): “Well, I really just put some stuff in a bowl.”

Everyone: “Git aht.” (That’s a Yinzer accent, for you non-Pittsburghers.)

Nicole: “No, seriously, I just put some flour, yeast and water in a bowl and let it sit overnight. I had some rye and some other stuff and I threw that in too. I baked it in a freaking pot.”

Everyone: “GIT. AHT.”

Immediately upon returning home and running out of bread, I googled “No Knead Bread,” and here we are today.

Use the original recipe if you want to start from a clean slate, but as Nicole suggested, you can pretty much throw any likely bread ingredient in there. I wanted some additional fiber and whole grains, and a little sweetness never hurt anyone. My next endeavor will be to mix in some whole wheat flour in the slim-down spirit of the New Year and see how much whole wheat the recipe can handle.

What’s the best bread you’ve ever made?

No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Mark Bittman’s adaptation of Jim Lahey’s recipe in The New York Times

15 ounces bread flour
1 ounce wheat bran
2 ounces rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Up to 2 cups water

Day 1 (10 minutes tops, active time): Mix together flour, wheat bran, oats, yeast, salt, honey and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add up to 2 cups water and mix until well combined. You want the dough to be very wet and sticky, basically an ooey glob. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it out of the way. (But don’t forget it.) Let it ferment for at least 12 hours, or overnight, or up to 24 hours. (I’ve done them all, and they all work great.)

Day 2 (3 hours, almost all passive): Flour an area of your counter. Turn the now-bubbly, sticky, gooey dough blob onto the floured area, sprinkle the top with flour, and fold it up on itself once or twice. Voila! Your loaf! Let it rest for 15 minutes.

Prepare a linen or smooth cotton towel by spreading corn meal over the center. Transfer the “loaf,” folded side down, onto the towel. Sprinkle the top liberally with more cornmeal, then fold the towel lightly on top (or use a second towel.) Let the dough rise for 2 hours.

After 1 hour 15 minutes of rising, start to preheat the oven and pot. Choose a Dutch oven or casserole dish with a good-fitting lid that is roughly the same diameter as your loaf. I use an oblong lidded glass casserole as my Dutch oven is too big for the bread. Put the vessel and lid in the oven, and preheat it t0 450 degrees F for at least 45 minutes. Do not skip preheating the dish!

When oven oven is screaming-hot and so it the pot, remove the pot from the oven and set it on the counter next to the dough. (Use a trivet! And for heaven’s sakes, shut the oven door!) Using the towel to support the bread, flip the loaf into the pot so it lands seam-side up. Put the lid on the pot and quickly get the bread back into the oven. Bake with the lid on for 30 minutes, then with the lid off for 15-30 minutes more, until the crust develops a lovely brown color. When finished, turn the loaf out onto a rack to cool.

Tagged as: bread, bread flour, oats, wheat bran, yeast