No Knead Bread – Revisited 2 Ways

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The 6th post I ever wrote on Macheesmo was for a simple loaf of no knead bread.  It was actually one of the recipes that made me want to start writing about food when I discovered it.  The admitted problem with my first take on this amazing bread, is I used a $300 pot that clearly not everyone has.  Since then one of the questions I get the most is if it is possible to make this bread without that pricey pot.

I’m sure Le Creuset doesn’t want you to know this, but you don’t need a really expensive pot to make this bread (although the pot is great for many other things and I use mine many times a week).

Here are two versions I made a few weeks ago using much more readily available equipment.

There is no easier bread recipe than this one.  It requires only the bare essentials for bread: flour, water, yeast, and salt.  Bam. Bread.  I usually like to make my loafs a bit more flavorful by using half whole wheat flour and half bread flour.  You can use all-purpose flour, but I would really recommend buying bread flour for this recipe.  It makes a better loaf.

Honestly, I adjust this recipe a bit often, but this is the basic one that for sure works.

Basic No Knead Bread Loaf
(Makes a large loaf or two small loafs)

- 4 Cups flour.  Like I said, I do two whole wheat and two bread flour.
- 1/3 Teaspoon active dry yeast.
- 1 2/3 Teaspoon salt.
- 2 1/6 Cups water.

After you make this a few times, you’ll learn that the dough is very flexible and that leads to a bit different loaf each time.  Each one has it’s own character which is probably a result of me not measuring really carefully.  Each loaf is still delicious though.

The Dough. The start of this recipe is obviously the dough and you need to start it about 18 hours before you want to actually cook your loaf.  The reason you don’t have to knead this bread is because by letting it sit overnight at room temperature, the yeast gets really active and does the mixing for you!

To start, add all your dry ingredients to a big bowl.  Mix them around with your hand to get the ingredients evenly distributed.

Once your dry ingredients are mixed, add your water.  Room temperature water is fine.  I’ve actually made it with cold water once or twice by accident and it also turned out fine.  It is going to sit at room temperature so the yeast will activate no matter what (unless your yeast is bad which probably isn’t the case if you follow the expiration date on the yeast container).  Once your water is added, just kind of mush everything together with your hands.  It will be uneven and lumpy and that is all just fine.

These days I can mix up a batch of this in under a minute.

Cover this loosely just to keep dirt out and let it sit in a room temperature spot for about 18 hours.  In a rush I’ve made it with as little as 12 hours sitting at room temperature and it was okay (I added a bit more yeast to help the process).  The full 18 hours gives the final product a great flavor though.

After 18 hours this is the result:

I cut this dough in half and made two small loafs.  One with each method.

Method 1: Baking Sheet Method

So it turns out the most basic way to bake a loaf of bread is with a plain old baking sheet.  Before we can bake it though, we need to let it rise a second time.  Scrape the dough out of your bowl and onto a well floured surface.  And yes, you will have to scrape it because it will be very loose.  Flatten the dough out with your hands into a rough a square and then fold it over itself a few times, forming a loose ball.  Don’t overwork it.  You will need a good amount of flour.

Lay this ball, seam side down, onto a heavily floured towel.  If you want to get crazy you can throw some flax seed or bran on the towel also.

Cover this with a towel or just fold the spare ends of the towel over so it doesn’t dry out.  Let that rise for about 2 more hours.

Pre-heat. Be sure to start pre-heating your oven about 30 minutes before you bake.  The last thing you want to do is put that loaf into a lukewarm oven where it will just dry out.  The only way to have a crunchy loaf with a moist, lovely crumb is to have a really hot oven.

Flip over the dough from the towel onto the baking sheet and put it straight into the oven!

For one large loaf this will need to bake at 475-500 degrees for about 45 minutes.  Two smaller loafs will only take 25 minutes.

Method 2: Pizza Stone

If you are lucky enough to have a pizza stone, you can definitely use it for this loaf of bread.  The only difference (and why I prefer the pizza stone) is that you can preheat the pizza stone in the oven so your crust is even, well, crustier.

The trick to this is to let the dough rise on a pizza peel so you can just slide it right onto the hot stone in the oven.  Don’t have a pizza peel?  You can use the back of a baking sheet also.

Venting the loaf. If you are cooking the loaf using method one or the expensive pot method, you don’t need to vent the loaf.  By that I mean make a few small 1/4 inch deep slits in the top of the loaf with a serrated knife to let out steam.  The reason is because in method one you flip the loaf from the towel to the sheet, so the seam of the bread is up and as it cooks that seam will open slightly and let out steam.

If however you are sliding the loaf onto a hot stone, the seam will be down and you will get large air bubbles in your loaf.  See, for example, my finished loaf which I completely forgot to vent.  OOPS.

Let’s talk steam. There are two advantages the professional baker has on the amateur at home baker.  First, heat.  We can only get our ovens so hot, but luckily it is generally hot enough to get a good result.  Second, is steam.  Professional bakers use really expensive ovens that inject steam into the environment at the beginning of the baking.  This is pretty hard to replicate at home, but we can try.

First, you can just put an empty baking dish (not glass it will explode and not non-stick.  Something that can take the heat.) in the oven about ten minutes before you are ready to bake.  Then you can throw in a cup of hot water as you put your loaf in and it will instantly boil and create steam.

Personally, I like to do that and also keep one of these handy.

Tipsy always keeps a close eye on the squirt bottle.  Keep your enemies close…  But seriously, a few squirts from this thing  on the mist setting will instantly vaporize and create the steam you need.  With one or both of these tactics, you can do a decent job of recreating steam inside the oven. (By the way, this is the advantage of the very expensive pot.  When the lid is on it creates, in effect, a very tiny steam oven).

So, here are the end results side by side.  Both loaves took about 25 minutes to bake and you should let them cool on a rack for about at least an hour before cutting into them.

Now, as I mentioned, the pizza stone version has some big holes in it because I forgot to vent it.  Other than that, note that the crumb is about the same but the pizza stone has a noticeably better crust.  That’s because of the intense heat that the stone gives off.  But seriously both are delicious and better than anything you can buy in the store.

I used both for sandwiches for a week and they were great.  This bread also makes the best toast in the world.

This was a long post, but anybody have any questions?  Everyone should give this a shot!