This No-Knead bread will have you feeling like an Artisan bread baker, it requires no special equipment or skills. It uses the most basic bread making technique and method, but produces flavor that any level baker will enjoy. You mix everything in a bowl and than just let it rest and rise covered at room temperature and see the magic happen. It’s a bakery style white bread with a thin crusty exterior and a tender interior perfect for sandwiches, dipping in soups/sauces, and perfect with slab of butter!
I am not taking any credit for this technique/method of bread making. I also think the credit of this type of bread making doesn’t go to one person in particular. Because bread baking even the no-knead method has been around since ages in all cultures. But most recently this no-knead method was popularized by bread baker Jim Lahey after it was published by Mark Bittman in the New York Times. This technique/method states that the wet dough as it rests for a period of time will form the gluten rather than kneading the dough.
Though the ingredients are simple I still had to make it a few times to get it just right. Each time I tweaked how much I handled the dough, or how much dry flour I used to shape the dough and the baking temperature/time had to be adjusted.
KEY STEPS
Make sure your yeast is not expired. I have used instant yeast.
Make sure your water is not too hot it will kill the yeast. It should be warm not hot to the touch.
All-purpose flour was used for this recipe. I have not tried making this with bread flour or whole wheat flour.
I made this recipe in a 8 inch round cake baking pan and a loaf pan both worked out fine. Just make sure it’s a oven safe pan. I wanted to show this because many people don’t have dutch ovens. If you have a dutch oven you can preheat the empty dutch oven bake with lid on than take bread out and continue baking for additional 5-10 min on oven rack. If you feel like bread is browning too much on top you can cover with foil or parchment paper.
I keep leftover bread stored at room temperature covered in clean kitchen towel for about 3 days.
Design and fancy scoring is not essential to this bread. You can just slash or make a deep cut with a sharp knife or razor on top of the dough, this helps the bread to expand as it bakes. You can also use a stencil and flour to dust a design on the dough before baking.
- 3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. instant yeast
- 1½ cups warm water
- 8 or 9 inch round or loaf baking pan
- Parchment paper
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk flour, salt and yeast together until mixed.
- Stir in the warm water, mix with hands or a wooden spoon so the dough comes together. Dough will be sticky and clumpy and will look like it's very loose. That is how it should be, don't knead.
- Cover the bowl with cling wrap and let it rest/rise on counter top for 12-18 hours.
- After rising time the dough will have doubled in size, will look fluffy, bubbly and loose.
- Lightly flour the work surface, scrape the dough using spatula or dough scraper onto the floured surface.
- Lightly flour top of dough again and shape into a round ball. Do not knead.
- Place the dough ball onto parchment paper. Lift and place in the baking pan. Cover with cling wrap again and let it rest for another 30-40 minutes at room temp.
- Meanwhile preheat oven to 475 degrees F place oven rack in middle (if your oven is to hot on 475 than adjust temp and time. maybe do 450 but bake a little longer) Each oven is different. Also if you are using a dutch oven with lid preheat the pot about 25-30 min before placing dough and baking.
- Remove plastic from dough. Slash with razor or sharp knife in center than bake for 35 minutes.
- Than remove from pan and remove parchment paper and place bread on oven rack and continue baking another 5-10 minutes (if using dutch oven uncover lid and continue baking for another 5-10 minutes) If top is getting too brown cover with foil or parchment.
- Set baked bread on a wire rack and let it cool at least 20 minutes before slicing.
- Use a knife that is serrated for bread to slice.
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