When Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York City shared his brilliant method of making no-knead artisan bread at home, he probably didn’t realize how quickly people would embrace his recipe. It was with such passion and enthusiasm that even non-bakers were converted into believers that they too could produce a loaf that rivaled upscale store bakeries.
Even a small child could make this bread known for its hard crunchy golden crust and soft warm texture on the inside. Using only all-purpose flour, yeast, salt, and water, baking artisan bread only required a few minutes of time to mix the dough, enough patience to wait overnight for the yeast to do its thing, and an oven proof pot with a lid. This no-knead bread become a movement that swept across the country.
Honestly, what is better than fresh baked bread still crackling right from the oven? I know. Warm freshly baked bread with a smidge of butter and homemade jam spread across a newly cut slice.
In our home alone we used to bake bread nearly every day for months because the end product required so little effort. I discovered I should always double a batch because I could fit two pots in my oven and bake two loaves simultaneously in the same amount of time it took for one. Furthermore I discovered a quicker and easier way of baking the bread. Lahey’s original method involved heating a pot in a hot oven first before quickly adding the unbaked ball of dough to it. Instead of this method I learned you could get the same results by just setting the dough in a cold pot and placing it in a cold oven first and allowing it to heat together.
My mom, who lives with us, wanted to learn how to make this bread. I taught her in 5 minutes. She was amazed that she, who never bakes, could bake such a beautiful loaf. Needless to say she became obsessed. So obsessed that she would bake in the early hours of the morning to have a fresh loaf of bread to take to church for her 6 am prayer service. She baked 3-4 loaves daily giving them out to families within her congregation. Once you learn how to bake bread it becomes hard to ever buy it again.
Today I have for you my method for baking no-knead bread slightly adapted from Lahey’s original method. I encourage you to watch the video to see for yourself just how simple it is. Once you try it for yourself, you too will become a no-knead convert. Just remember, if you decide to bake as much bread as my mom, expect your energy bill to reflect your new zeal for baking. Enjoy!
A simple method for making no-knead bread faster and easier than the original no-knead recipe.
Ingredients
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1½ cup slightly warmer than luke warm water
Directions
In a medium large bowl, mix the flour, salt, and yeast together. Pour the water over the flour mixture and mix with a spoon until the flour is absorbed and the mixture resembles wet sticky dough. Cover the bowl with either plastic wrap, foil, or a clean, wet, kitchen towel. Place the bowl in a warm place.
Allow the dough to rest overnight.
Cut a piece of parchment paper slightly smaller than the base of the pot. Place the parchment paper inside the pot.
Sprinkle just enough flour on the dough to be able to scoop the dough out with your hand without being too sticky. Place the loosely form dough ball in the center of the pot, on top of the parchment paper.
Place a oven-safe lid on top of the pot and place it in the cold oven.
Turn the oven on to 450 degrees F and set a kitchen timer for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, carefully remove the lid from the pot and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Remove the pot from the oven and carefully remove loaf from the pot.
Allow the bread to rest for 5 minutes before cutting into slices.
Yield: 1 loaf
Alice Currah is the publisher of popular food blog, Savory Sweet Life. Her approachable everyday recipes are accompanied by beautiful step by step photos and have been featured online at Martha Stewart, Real Simple, The Pioneer Woman, Epicurious, Bon Appetit, Saveur, iVillage and many more. In March 2010, Forbes.com featured Alice as one of Eight of the Very Best Food Bloggers. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
Pros: Develops dough without adding additional flour (as with traditional kneading). Effective method, especially with slack doughs such as baguettes. Cons: Takes time and repetitions to master.
Try raising the oven rack so the bottom is not as close to the heat. Your oven may be hotter than you think. Use an oven thermometer to assure your oven is the proper temperature. Try placing a baking pan on the rack below the bread to block some of the heat.
Simply put, you have to control the temperature of the bread. Allowing ample time for your bread dough to rise and the yeast to form will create the holes in the bread that give it a lighter texture. Letting your dough get puffy and grow before it goes into the oven is critical.
Why is my bread dense: Usually bread will be too dense when there is too much flour. Keep in mind this dough will be pretty sticky, do not add more flour than specified. Other factors that come into play are humidity and age of flour. Little yeast, long rise, sticky dough are keys to a good, light loaf.
No-knead bread gets its power from a long, slow rise at room temperature. Mix up the dough in the morning and let it sit for at least six hours before shaping and rising for one hour more. The bread bakes for 30 minutes covered and 15 minutes uncovered in the Dutch oven.
Active Dry Yeast is an ideal yeast to use for artisan breads or no knead breads that require a slower rise time. It's also the preferred type of yeast for those doughs that proof in the refrigerator for extended periods of time.
The usual reason why bread becomes too dense is due to using flour with low protein content. When your loaf is spongy and heavy, you might have also put too much flour into it or made the dough in a cooler or too warm setting.
Bread recipes typically call for two rises: The first is the “bulk” rise when the dough rises in the bowl, while the second rise comes after the dough has been shaped, like when a sandwich dough proofs directly in the loaf pan.
Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.
Butter and especially stronger oils, such as walnut, can also add flavor to bread. Dry milk powder adds flavor to bread and can soften its texture, as in the case of this basic white sourdough. Add it to dough with the flour.
The Rubaud method is a popular method of hand mixing the dough. The Rubaud method develops gluten strength up front in the process. In the Rubuaud method, you gently lift and pull the dough in a bowl, mimicking the motion of a diving-arm mixer (or perhaps the diving arm-mixer is mimicking the Rubaud method!)
The method uses a long rise instead of kneading to align the dough's gluten molecules with each other so as to produce a strong, elastic network, resulting in long, sticky strands.
Classic no-knead bread (made with ¼ tsp instant yeast and 2¾ cups of flour) often tastes flat and dull. That lack of flavor comes from the yeast outpacing enzymes and consuming too many of the available sugars in the dough.
No-knead bread uses a very small amount of yeast to extend the rising time to many hours. Not only does gluten develop over that long time, but enzymes in the flour activate and convert some of the wheat starches into sugar, which feeds the yeast and adds to the flavour of the bread.
Given a few folds a no-knead dough can be just as strong as a dough that has been kneaded. In some cases, like with doughs that contain a lot of whole grain flour, kneading can even have a negative effect on gluten development.
A failure to knead dough (unless you're working with a no-knead recipe) can lead to: Poor gluten development: When you don't knead bread, the gluten won't form properly. This can result in a lack of elasticity and strength, meaning your final product is likely to come out of the oven dense and heavy.
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