Can I interest you in the best sandwich ever?

Betsy and I used to be big time sandwich people for lunch. In my opinion, you can put almost anything on a sandwich and it’ll probably be decent as long as one thing is really good: The bread.

If I get a sandwich and it’s made with some crappy flimsy bread, I just don’t care for it. I want my bread sturdy and ready for tons of condiments and toppings. I want to be able to wrap it up and eat it a few hours later without worrying about it falling apart.

We’re getting back into sandwiches these days after a brief stint in a quinoa salad and/or wheat berry salad phase.

So I took this as an opportunity to work on my sandwich breads.

These big, thin, sturdy loaves called stecca or “stick” turned out to make for some of the best sandwich bread I’ve had!

Stecca Sandwich Bread

Yield: 4 loafs

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes + rise time

Ingredients:

3 Cups (400 grams) bread flour
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1 Teaspoon sugar
1/4 Teaspoon yeast (instant or active dry is fine)
1 1/2 Cups cool water (55-65 degrees F.)
Additional flour, olive oil, and kosher salt for dusting

Directions:

1) Combine flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Stir in water until combined. It should be a pretty wet dough.

2) Let sit, covered, for 12-18 hours.

3) Scrape dough onto a well-floured surface. Work the dough a bit by folding it over itself. After a few folds, form a loose ball with the dough.

4) Add the dough to a well-floured towel, seam side down. Drizzle dough with olive oil and top with a pinch of kosher salt.

5) Cover dough ball and let rise for 2 hours.

6) Cut dough into 4 equal parts. Lightly oil two 18 inch sheet pans.

7) Form 4 long, thin loaves with each quarter of dough. The loaves should be a few inches across and fairly thin. Don't worry about them being all the same though.

8) Drizzle each loaf with a bit more olive oil and another small pinch of salt. Let them rise again for 30 minutes.

9) Bake in a pre-heated 500 degree oven for 15-25 minutes until the loaves are golden brown. Mine took about 20 minutes.

10) Let cool for at least 30 minutes before eating.

11) To store, let cool completely, then wrap in plastic wrap and store in the fridge.

Adapted from My Bread.

The Dough

This dough comes together just like the normal loaf of no knead bread would. It takes maybe 60 seconds to get it ready, but it does need to sit for 12-18 hours before you can continue with the recipe. So a bit of planning is necessary unfortunately.

Don’t worry though, you’ll be well-rewarded for your planning efforts.

Start by mixing the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Add in the water and stir to combine. The dough should be very loose. It should be too wet to knead even if you wanted to.

This is what mine looked like after about 15 seconds of stirring.

No knead necessary!

Cover this with plastic wrap and let it sit for at least 12 hours.

During that time, the slow fermentation will basically knead the dough for you as the gases work through the dough.

You’ll come back to a dough that’s more than double in volume and very soft. It’ll be really wet, more wet than when you left it because the flour is now completely relaxed.

These are all good things.

After a night...

Shaping the Loaves

So now that you have this big bowl of dough, let’s make some great sandwich bread.

The thing to remember when working with this dough is that you’ll need to use a good amount of flour to make sure you can work with it. Otherwise, it’ll be too sticky.

So sprinkle a good amount of flour on a work surface. Then scrape out the dough from the bowl and turn it over itself a few times. Kind of press it down, then fold over the edges. Just do this a few times until you have a rough ball of dough that holds its shape. It shouldn’t take more than a minute.

Transfer this dough ball to a kitchen towel that’s been floured also. Once the dough is on the towel with the seam side down, drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle it with a pinch of kosher salt.

Don't worry about this part.

Cover this with the towel and let it rise again for 2 hours.

When this rise is done, take the dough and cut it into four even pieces. If you want to get exact, you could weigh them, but I kind of just went by sight.

Lightly oil two 18 inch baking sheets. Take each quarter of dough and stretch or roll it out to fit the length of the pan. So each piece of dough will stretch to 18 inches and should be a few inches across. It’s fine if they are very thin at this point.

Also, don’t worry about the loaves being perfectly uniform. Go for the rustic look.

Once the loaves are shaped, drizzle them with a bit more olive oil and salt and let them rise again for 30 minutes.

Don't worry about this part either.

Baking and Sandwich Making

Bake these guys in a preheated in a 500 degree oven for 15-25 minutes. You might need to rotate the pans if they are looking like they are cooking unevenly.

Mine took about 20 minutes before they were golden brown on the top.

Really good.

I was worried that mine were getting burned on the bottom, but it turned out to be perfect.

This was what the bottoms looked like after 20 minutes.

The backside.

After you let these cool for at least 30 minutes, you can chop into them.

Mine had a beautiful crumb structure. Perfect for sandwiches!

Some of the best I've made!

Betsy likes turkey, but I was on a pastrami kick last week.

One loaf of the bread makes two really big sandwiches actually.

As you can see, this is one mean sandwich. I’d guess this would cost $10 at a deli and I made it for around $3-$4.

Beautiful.

If you’re not a sandwich person, this bread would be great for just dipping in some olive oil as well. It’s a pretty good all-purpose loaf that is a heck of a lot easier to make then, say, a traditional French baguette.

Once my loaves were cooled completely, I stored mine in the fridge, wrapping them twice in plastic wrap. They kept really well for the whole week!

A new take on garlic bread.

This will probably be no secret to you but garlic bread is freakin’ delicious. The thing about most garlic bread is that it’s not actually garlic bread. It’s bread with garlic on it.

So I changed that.

I changed it by baking garlic right into the loaf. How could that not be delicious right?

Roasted Garlic Bread

Yield: 1 loaf.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes + rising time

Ingredients:

4 Cups bread flour (or 2 Cups bread flour and 2 Cups whole wheat flour)
A scant 1/2 Teaspoon instant yeast (or active dry yeast)
1 1/2 Teaspoons salt
2 1/4 Cups room-temperature water
2 whole heads of garlic
1 Tablespoon olive oil (for roasting garlic)
Pinch of salt (for roasting garlic)
Cornmeal or semolina flour for dusting loaf

Helpful Equipment:
Dutch oven for cooking bread

Directions:

1) Slice off the very top of each head of garlic and wrap them in foil. Then drizzle in a tiny amount of olive oil and sprinkle with salt.

2) Bake these at 350 degrees until the garlic is very tender and fragrant, about 30 minutes.

3) Let the roasted garlic cool for a few minutes and then squish out all the garlic cloves and mush them up with a fork. Don't over-mush though. Some pieces of garlic are nice.

4) To make the dough, add the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl.

5) Mix together and then mix in the mashed garlic with your hands making sure the garlic is well-distributed.

6) Stir in the water and, using your hands, mix until the dough is together in a loose ball.

7) Cover and let rise for 14-18 hours at room temperature.

8) Pour the dough onto a lightly floured surface and fold it over itself a few times. Form a loose rectangle with the dough.

9) Sprinkle a good layer of cornmeal or semolina flour on a clean towel and add the dough loaf seam-side down on the towel.

10) Cover and let rise again for 2 hours.

11) Preheat your oven to 500 degrees with the pot of a dutch oven in the pan for 30 minutes. Don't pre-heat the lid of the pot. Your pan and oven should be very hot.

12) Take out the pan and flip your dough into the pan. Put on the lid immediately and cook, with the lid on, at 500 degrees for 30 minutes.

13) Remove the lid and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes.

14) Remove bread from pan and cool on a wire rack for at least an hour before slicing.

Roasting the garlic

If you’ve never roasted garlic, I suggest you stop reading and try it right away. When it’s roasted the flavor is much more mellow than when it’s raw. In fact, you can just take a clove of roasted garlic and smear it on some bread and have a very delicious snack. That’d be a bit brutal to do with the raw stuff.

To roast garlic, slice the very top of the head off, revealing all the individual cloves. Then wrap each head in foil and drizzle in a tiny bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

The way to roast.

Wrap these little packages up and bake them at 350 degrees until the garlic is really fragrant and tender, about 30 minutes.

If you want to test them, you should be able to easily slide a knife into a clove with almost no resistance.

Let the roasted heads of garlic cool for a few minutes and then you can squish out each clove of garlic from the papery stuff.

I lightly mushed up all the roasted garlic. I wanted some chunks in the bread so I didn’t go crazy with the mushing.

Two whole heads of garlic...

Making the bread

I used a standard no knead bread recipe for this loaf. I started by combining my flour, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Then I added in my roasted garlic and just used my fingers to make sure the garlic was well-distributed throughout the flour mixture.

Next, I added the water and quickly pulled it all into a ball, using my hands. Remember that no knead bread requires no, well, kneading. The dough will be really wet and saggy and pretty much impossible to knead anyway.

It’ll smell like roasted garlic though which is a good thing and you should be able to see tiny pieces of garlic in the dough!

Cover this and let it sit at room temperature for 14-18 hours. This was my dough before the rise.

No knead. No problem.

This was after!

A white balance would've helped...

At this point you need to form the loaf. This is really easy and try not to stress about it.

Basically, just lightly flour a counter and pour (yea you’ll probably have to pour it) the dough onto the surface. Gently fold it over itself a few times and then form it into a rectangular loaf. Sprinkle a clean towel with a good layer of cornmeal or semolina flour and lay the loaf on the towel, seam side down.

Like this.

Forming the loaf.

Cover this with a towel (or just fold the towel over onto the loaf). Let it rise again for about 2 hours.

Cooking the loaf

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Preheat with your pot in the oven but not the lid of the pot for the last 30 minutes. You want to make sure that the pot and the oven are both super-hot.

Then, carefully pull your hot pot out of the oven and roll in your loaf of dough. The dough is still really wet so you probably won’t be able to actually pick it up. Just pick up the towel and roll it into the pot so the seam side of the bread is now up.

Should look like this!

That's better!

Put the lid on the pot and cook it for 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and cook the loaf for another 15-20 minutes until the loaf is a deep dark brown.

This is some realllly good bread.

A deep color to this one.

Remove the bread from the pot and let it cool on a wire rack for at least an hour before slicing into it.

Then slice it up!

This was good stuff.

The garlic flavor is actually subtle but nobody will miss it and you won’t have much of this bread left if you serve it to a crowd.

I know because I did serve this bread to a crowd!

More on that meal tomorrow…

There's cheese in there somewhere.

I’ve had this cheese bread recipe bookmarked for a while now. What I love about it is that it uses a nice semi-hard cheese, so it doesn’t get melty and soggy. Instead it stays kind of firm and just slightly oozes throughout the bread.

Cheese Bread

Yield: 1 loaf.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours + overnight rise and 2 hour second rise

Ingredients:

3 Cups bread flour
6 ounces Semi-hard cheese (I used a Pecorino Toscano 6 month aged), about 1 to 1 1/2 Cups cubed
3/4 Teaspoon yeast
1 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon Black pepper
1 1/3 Cups water

Helpful Equipment:
Cast Iron Dutch Oven (I actually use an enameled Le Creuset variety.)

Directions:

1) Cut off any rind sections on the cheese and cube it into 1/4 inch pieces.

2) Mix cheese with flour, salt, yeast, and pepper. Then stir in water. The dough should be very stick... too sticky to knead.

3) Cover the dough loosely and let it ferment at room temperature for 18-24 hours.

4) Flour a clean surface and scoop the dough out onto it. Sprinkle the top with more flour. Fold the dough over itself a few times and shape it into a loaf. You can either make a round version or a more rectangle shape.

5) Invert the dough on a towel that's been dusted with cornmeal or flour. The seam of the dough should be down. Lightly cover the dough and let it sit for another 2 hours.

6) 30 minutes before you want to cook the loaf, preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Stick your pot in the oven also for the preheat time so it gets really hot. No need to heat up the lid for the pot.

7) Take the pot out of the oven and flip the dough into the pot so the seam is up.

8) Cover and bake at 475 for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 20-30 minutes.

9) Remove the loaf and cool it on a wire rack for at least an hour.

10) Serve with olive oil or make sandwiches with the bread. It's great.

Pane con Formaggio from My Bread.

The Cheese

In the original recipe, Jim Lahey recommends using a 3 month aged pecorino toscano, but I could only find the 6 month variety. Cheeses tend to get a bit saltier as they age so I decreased the salt in my recipe by 1/4 Teaspoon as he recommends.

Good cheese.

You could use a pretty wide variety of cheeses for this, but I do think you want something semi-firm to firm. You don’t want something that’s going to ooze all over the place. Any pecorino or parmesan would probably work fine.

The flavor of the cheese comes through pretty strongly in this bread, so in my opinion, it’s worth getting the good stuff for it.

To prep the cheese, cut off any rind sections (you can save them for soup or stock if you want) and then dice the cheese into 1/4 inch cubes.

Cubes are what you want.

Mix the cheese in with the flour, salt, yeast, and black pepper just to combine everything evenly. Then add your water. You should end up with a very moist, sticky dough. It’s impossible to knead even if you wanted to.

If you have a heavy hand with the flour (I do), you may have to add another 1/4 Cup of water (I did) to get the dough to this point. Eventually, it should all come together in a big sticky ball dotted with cheese cubes.

Sloppy dough.

Fermenting

Cover this bowl and let it sit at room temperature for 18-24 hours. It will bubble and more than double in size and be kind of sloppy.

This was mine after 18 hours and looks about right:

After about 18 hours.

Shaping the Cheese Bread

Lightly flour a clean surface and pour or scoop or splat your dough onto the surface. Dust it with a bit more flour if you hands are sticking to it and then gently press it into a rough rectangle.

Then fold the ends in to produce a loaf shape. Mine was probably 10 inches long by 4 or 5 inches wide.

Don't freak out about the shape.

Gently invert this onto a towel that’s been heavily dusted with cornmeal or flour. Cornmeal works the best in my opinion. It’s important to make sure that the seam (the one above that you can see) is DOWN on the towel.

That’s because when we flip this into a pot, we want the seam side to be UP.

The Proof

Once your dough is on the towel, fold the towel edges over to cover it and let it sit for another 2 hours.

After another two hours.

About thirty minutes before your loaf is done proofing, stick your pot into the oven with the lid OFF and preheat to 475. You want to give it 30 minutes to get really hot. Don’t preheat the lid because A) it’s unnecessary and B) if you have a lid with a hard plastic nob, it might melt!

After it’s preheated, carefully pull your pot out of the oven and flip your shaped cheese bread into the pot. So now the seam should be UP.

This was mine. It’s hard to see, but those creases in the below photo are the seam.

This is a hot pot!

Why is it important that the seam is up? It gives steam an easy way to escape. If you don’t do this, you’re bread might have a huge air bubble in the center where steam was trapped.

Baking the Loaf

When you’re dough is in the pot, put your lid on it and cook your loaf at 475 for 30 minutes.

Then carefully remove the lid. You’ll have something beautiful like this:

Lookin' good.

It’s not done cooking, but it’s on its way. Return your pot to the oven with the lid OFF and cook for an additional 20-30 minutes. This will let the loaf form a really dark, lovely crust.

Cool it down

As always when baking bread, it’s super-important to let your loaf cool down. Let it cool for at least an hour before cutting into it. And yes, it will still be slightly warm after an hour. It takes at least two hours to cool completely.

This was my cross section of the bread:

The crust and crumb.

I’m really not sure it gets much better than a few slices of this bread, slightly warm, with some olive oil. It’s hard to see the cheese in the bread after it baked, but the flavor is there. Trust me.

Good for a happy hour!

I was very impressed with this loaf. I’m not sure that I like it as much as the olive loaf for everyday use (I love olives a lot), but it would be great to make for an appetizer at a party or something.

My one worry about the loaf was that the small bits of cheese that were on the outside of the loaf would melt and burn to the pan. That happened in one or two spots, but they didn’t burn to charcoal. In those spots, the crust was just very crunchy. Not a problem in my book!

This is an expensive loaf of bread actually, but in my mind it’s worth it. The flavor was great and it would be perfect for some dishes. Broccoli soup with this bread would rock my world.

You can find all the previous entries under the Grilled Cheese Trials. Today’s entry is a tapenade sandwich with homemade bread and mozzarella cheese!

Um. Yes please.

I came up with this idea largely because I had some great tapenade ingredients left over from my Greek nachos experiment. I figured why not make a sandwich with them!

Tapenade Grilled Cheese

Yield: 2 sandwiches.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 head roasted garlic
1/3 Cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/3 Cup kalamata olives
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
6-8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese
Fresh basil
4 slices sturdy, rustic bread. A sourdough loaf would be good.
2-3 Tablespoons butter

Helpful Equipment:
Mini food processor (obviously you could use the bigger version if you have that)

Directions:

1) Roast the garlic by cutting the top off the entire bulb, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt then wrap the entire thing in foil.

2) Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 40 minutes.

3) In a food processor, chop sun-dried tomatoes then add olives and cloves of roasted garlic. Drizzle in a few tablespoons of olive oil until mixture comes together leaving it a bit chunky.

4) Take two slices of bread and lightly spread butter on them.

5) Flip the pieces over and slather on some tapenade onto both sides of the bread.

6) Layer on sliced mozzarella and some fresh basil and press together so the buttered sides are on the outside.

7) Grill on a medium to medium-high heat for a few minutes gently give it a flip as often as needed.

Making the Tapenade

You could make a more traditional tapenade with capers and anchovies if that’s your thing. I went with a roasted garlic and sun-dried tomato version though.

To start, you need to roast a head of garlic. This couldn’t be easier. Just chop off the top off an entire bulb, drizzle it with a bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and wrap the whole thing in foil.

Pretty straightforward

Bake it at 350 for about 30-40 minutes. Your house will smell delicious and the garlic should be a nice light brown color. Let it cool for a few minutes.

If they made a candle, I'd buy a box.

If you’re making my version of the tapenade you’ll need these things also:

Ingredients for the tapenade.

I have a tiny 3 Cup food processor that’s perfect for mixing up stuff like this. I threw in my sun-dried tomatoes first as they would be the hardest to chop and gave them a spin for a few seconds. Then I added my olives and finally my cloves of roasted garlic. Drizzle in a few tablespoons of olive oil until the mixture comes together.

Looks like a lot of garlic... don't worry.

It looks like a lot of garlic, but the flavor is actually pretty mild.

Pulse it a few times to combine everything and you’ll be all set. You don’t want to over-process this spread. A bit chunky is good in my book.

Yum.

Making the Sandwich

I think that choosing the appropriate bread is one of the most important things you can do for a grilled cheese. For this sandwich, I think I chose wisely. I went with a rustic loaf of homemade no knead bread. This is actually my normal bread that I make once a week and it worked great with this sandwich. I wanted to make sure I had something hearty enough to stand up to the tapenade.

Can't buy this!

To get the sandwich ready, take two slices of bread and lightly spread butter on them. That will be the outside of the sandwich. Then flip the pieces over and slather on some tapenade onto both sides of the bread. Layer on sliced mozzarella and some fresh basil and smoosh it all together so the buttered sides are on the outside!

It’s ready for the heat!

Get it?

The key thing about a grilled cheese is controlling the heat. To hot and you’ll burn your bread before your cheese is melted. Too low on the heat and you’ll starve before it’s done.

A medium to medium-high heat should be about right depending on your stove and pan. Just set the sandwich in and let it cook for a few minutes and gently give it a flip. These aren’t like pancakes, you can flip them over and over again and that’s just fine.

This is about as perfect as it gets in my book:

Grill baby grill.

The good news about this sandwich is that mozzarella melts incredibly fast. So you shouldn’t have to worry about the bread being toasted before the cheese is melted.

Nice.

As with all the other grilled cheese trial submissions, here’s my verdict:

Cheesiness: 7. I think mozzarella is better for pizzas than sandwiches. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but it was almost too melty. It made it kind of hard to eat!
Bread: 9. The bread was great. Nicely toasted with a good crunch to it. It held up perfectly to the toppings.
Fillings: 9. I swooned over this tapenade. I could just eat it with a spoon.
Overall: 8. Unfortunately, not the best sandwich I’ve made for this competition, but definitely a worthy competitor. I think if I subbed out a slightly more flavorful cheese, I’d be onto something.

Got an idea for a grilled cheese? Leave a comment!

There was a lot of great parts to the meal, most of which I doubt I can replicate. The one part that I wanted to try immediately though was the bread they brought to the table. It was in the shape of large rustic rolls that had a great crust and a very chewy crumb on the inside that reminded me a lot of no knead bread.

I have no idea if that’s the method they use to make their rolls, but I thought I’d give it a shot. The results were pretty excellent!

Crusty and delicious.

I’ve written about no knead bread a bunch on Macheesmo and even interviewed it’s creator, Jim Lahey. This is just one more great way to apply the recipe.

Rustic Rolls

Yield: 16 rolls.

Prep Time: 10 minutes + two rises (1 overnight)

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes + rise times

Ingredients:

2 Cups bread flour
2 Cups whole wheat flour (You can use all bread flour if you want. Don't use all wheat flour though.)
2 Teaspoons Kosher salt (or 1 Teaspoon table salt)
1/3 Teaspoon instant yeast
2 1/6 Cups lukewarm water
Cornmeal and extra flour for dusting

Helpful Equipment:
Pizza Stone and Peel (You can bake this on a sheet pan of course if you don't have a pizza stone. The stone is a good investment though in my opinion.)

Directions:

1) Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and then add water. Mix with your hands until the dough comes together in a loose dough.

2) Cover dough and let it sit at room temperature for about 18 hours, but at least 12 hours. It should more than double in size and be almost spongy.

3) Flour counter well and also sprinkle a good layer of flour on the top of the dough before turning it out.

4) Fold dough gently over a few times, forming a round boule or in this case a rectangle which will make it easier to cut up the rolls later.

5) Press dough into a rough large rectangle. Fold over the two longer ends so they overlap in the center.

6) Transfer dough seam side down onto a pizza stone that has been heavily coated with cornmeal.

7) Cover with a towel and let it rise again for about 2 hours. It should double in size.

8) Preheat it to 500 degrees with the pizza stone in it.

9) With a good serrated knife, slice the dough four times in each direction (horizontally and vertically) to produce a 4 by 4 square of smaller squares.

10) Slide dough onto hot pizza stone.

11) Bake in a 500 degree oven for about 35-40 minutes.

12) If you want to produce an even crispier crust, mist them with some water out of a spray bottle a few times during the first 10 minutes of cooking.

13) Once they are done, use the peel to remove them from the oven and transfer them straight to a wire rack to cool.

14) Cool for 30 minutes before serving.

Making the dough

If you’re a regular Macheesmo reader, you’ve probably seen me mix up this dough before, but basically you just combine all your dry ingredients in a bowl and then add your water. Then mix it all together with your hands.

The dough should hold together, but be pretty loose. It should slightly flow outward to the edges of the bowl if you just let it sit, but not be runny… if that makes sense.

This is what mine looks like.

Sloppy dough.

Don’t stress too much about the dough consistency. Mine is a bit different every time but it always turns out great.

The Waiting is Next!

Cover your dough and let it sit at room temperature for about 18 hours, but at least 12 hours. It should more than double in size and be almost spongy.

Flour your counter pretty well and also sprinkle a good layer of flour on the top of the dough before turning it out. This is what mine looked like after 18 hours.

Flour is your friend.

Forming the dough

This dough is kind of awkward to work with if you aren’t used to it. I like to fold it gently over a few times, forming a round boule or in this case a rectangle which will make it easier to cut up the rolls later.

To do the rectangle, kind of press your dough into a rough large rectangle. You don’t need to roll it with a pin. Then fold over the two longer ends so they overlap in the center. It’s okay if it’s not perfect obviously.

Transfer your rough rectangle on a pizza stone that has been heavily coated with cornmeal. If you don’t have a good layer of cornmeal under the dough, it will stick badly when you try to slide it into the oven.

Transfer your dough so the seam of your fold is down on the peel. This will give you a flat surface to cut your rolls on later.

Again. Lots of flour and/or cornmeal.

Second Rising

Cover this with a towel and let it rise again for about 2 hours. It should double in size.

After about 90 minutes, you can get your oven ready for baking. Preheat it to 500 degrees with the pizza stone in it. You want everything to be as hot as possible!

After the dough has risen a second time, get a good serrated knife and slice the dough four times in each direction (horizontally and vertically) to produce a 4 by 4 square of smaller squares. Those are your rolls!

The knife might get kind of stuck in the dough some times, but that’s okay. Just keep working it and let the knife do the cutting. If you press down on the dough too much it will make the knife stick to the dough and the dough stick to the pizza peel.

The only two things to remember here are 1) don’t cut all the way through the dough. You want them to be connected so it’s easy to put them in and take them out of the oven. 2) It doesn’t have to be perfect. The less perfect it is, the more rustic it is!

Go crazy.

Baking the rolls

Slide these guys onto your hot pizza stone. If you notice they are sticking to the peel, use a knife or dough scraper to pry up the areas that are sticking and toss some more cornmeal underneath to prevent the sticky situation.

They will need to bake in a 500 degree oven for about 35-40 minutes. If you want to produce an even crispier crust, mist them with some water out of a spray bottle a few times during the first 10 minutes of cooking.

Once they are done, use the peel to remove them from the oven and transfer them straight to a wire rack to cool.

Kind of different.

After these have cooled for at least 30 minutes, you can eat away! I recommend still using a bread knife to cut them up as they are pretty sturdy rolls.

Very crunchy and chewy.

These aren’t the flaky, biscuit-like rolls you might be used to. These are hearty and have lots of flavor and texture on their own. They are good with just a bit of butter, but are really exceptional toasted with some jam, peanut butter, cheese, or Nutella.

Y0u really needed a sturdy piece of bread to hold up to those flavors.

If you regularly make no knead bread, these rolls are really just one more step away and a lot easier than all the shaping and proofing that normally goes into making rolls.

Pretty much all of them are way superior than anything you can buy in the store though. That said, I must admit that I’ve been getting a bit bored lately with the standard recipe. That’s why I was very excited to get my hands on My Bread by Jim Lahey, the founder of the No Knead Method (My Review).

There are a lot of great recipes in the book, but the one that slapped me across the mouth right away was the olive bread recipe. Maybe it’s just because I love olives so much, but I had to make this as soon as possible.

I’d never had olive bread before, but I think it was probably the best loaf of bread I’ve ever made.

I think my favorite loaf ever!

The crust on this loaf was great. Really crunchy and delicious. And the interior crumb was chewy and had a really nice structure. Then every other bite or so you’ll run into an olive which has made a rich, briny, salty pocket of flavor.

I think this is not something that most people are used to when they think of bread. I’ve talked to a few people about it and they stare at me… “So there are olives? In the bread? Weird.” Maybe it’s a tough sell, but I promise you won’t be disappointed if you try it (assuming you at least somewhat like olives obviously).

Olive Bread

Yield: 1 loaf

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes + rising time

Ingredients:

3 Cups Bread Flour
1 1/2 Cup Kalamata Olives, pitted, drained, roughly chopped
3/4 Teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/2 Cups cool water

Helpful Equipment:
Heavy enameled cast iron pot. (That's a link to the Ferrari of pots. Here's another with great ratings.)

Directions:

1) Drain the olives and pat them dry. Roughly chop and make sure that all the olives actually don’t have pits.

2) Mix yeast and flour together in a large bowl and then toss in the chopped olives

3) Add water and mix everything together using your hands or a large spoon.

4) Cover this and let it sit at room temperature for 14-18 hours.

5) Take a large tea towel and sprinkle it liberally with flour and corn meal. If you don’t have corn meal you can just use flour, but corn meal adds a great texture to it.

6) Scrape dough (you’ll need to scrape it) out onto a floured surface and just fold it a few times, liberally flouring both sides if it is sticking. Eventually you want to form a ball or loaf with it. Turn this onto floured towel with the seam side down on the towel.

7) Cover with the towel and let the loaf ferment and proof for another two hours.

8) Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Let a cast iron pot heat in the oven for at least 30 minutes so it is as hot as can be. Don’t preheat the lid in the oven. Just the pot itself.

9) Once the pot is blazing hot, pick up the towel with the dough on it and roll the dough into the pot so the seam side is up again!

10) Put the lid on the pot and cook it for 30 minutes. Then take off the lid (be really careful of escaping steam). Cook it for another 20 minutes or so until the crust is a dark, walnut brown.

11) Let it cool on a wire rack for an hour before slicing it.

From Jim Lahey's My Bread.

Simple Ingredients.

If you’re a regular bread maker, you might note that this recipe is missing salt – a normal staple in bread. That’s because the olives have plenty of saltiness and over the long fermentation time, that saltiness creeps out into the bread. It’s seriously amazing.

Making the dough

The dough for this is just like making a normal no knead loaf except that you need to chop up some olives. Use good olives that are kept in a salt brine. Divina makes a great product.

Drain the olives and pat them dry. Then give these guys a rough chop and make sure that all the olives actually don’t have pits. Sometimes the pitting machines will miss one or two per jar. Be on the lookout! You don’t want Broken Tooth Bread.

Chunks are good.

Mix your yeast and flour together in a large bowl and then toss in your chopped olives. Don’t worry. The olives won’t turn the bread a strange color. Then add your water and mix everything together using your hand or a large spoon.

I prefer the clean hand method myself. After just a few seconds you should have a pretty moist ball of dough. It should be very wet. You wouldn’t be able to knead this even if you wanted to.

Just a few seconds to pull this together.

Cover this and let it sit at room temperature for 14-18 hours. I let mine sit for the full 18 and this is what resulted!

After 18 hours...

It’s a big bubbly mess. That’s good. That means the yeast has done its job.

Next, take a large tea towel and sprinkle it liberally with flour and corn meal. If you don’t have corn meal you can just use flour, but corn meal adds a great texture to it.

Don't make fun of my ugly 70s towel please.

Scrape your dough (you’ll need to scrape it) out onto a floured surface and just fold it a few times, liberally flouring both sides if it is sticking. Eventually you want to form a ball or loaf with it.

This was not the best one I’ve ever made.

Not my best shaping job. Whatever.

Turn this onto your floured towel with the seam side down on the towel. The seam side by the way, is the side that’s on top in the above photo. So I flipped it so that was down on the floured towel.

Cover that towel and let the loaf ferment and proof for another two hours.

Baking the bread

After your bread has been proofing for about 90 minutes, preheat your oven to AS HOT AS YOU CAN. For me this was 500 degrees.

The traditional way to make no knead bread is to use a heavy enameled cast iron pot. If you don’t have one of those though, I’ve shown a few other ways you can bake this loaf in this post.

Assuming you do have a proper pot though, you want to get it blazing hot also. I usually let my pot heat in the oven for at least 30 minutes so it is as hot as can be. Don’t preheat the lid in the oven. Just the pot itself.

Once your pot is blazing hot, pick up the towel with the dough on it and roll the dough into the pot so the seam side is up again! It should look something like this:

It all evens out in the pot.

If it’s a bit uneven that’s okay. The dough will spread out and even out as it cooks.

Baking the bread

Put the lid on the pot and cook it for 30 minutes. Then take off the lid (be really careful of escaping steam). Cook it for another 20 minutes or so until the crust is a dark, walnut brown.

Let it cool on a wire rack for an hour before slicing it.

Crusty and Delicious!

One of the worries I had with this loaf is how it would be for a sandwich. No worries there! I’ve made a few turkey sandwiches with it and it is so good. The olives are fantastic. It’s ends up being a really subtle flavor throughout the bread. It’s not the overpowering briny flavor that you get when you actually eat an olive.

It’s subtle and salty and delicious.

I’ll be completely honest. I think this might be one of the better loafs of bread I’ve ever eaten. Definitely the best I’ve ever cooked. I just can’t say enough good things about it!

If you’ve tried olive bread before, leave a comment and confirm its amazingness.

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.

No need for the knead.

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.

All you need for love.

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.

No need to weigh for this recipe.

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.

A scant 1/2 Teaspoon = 1/3 Teaspoon.

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.

Couldn't knead this if you wanted to.

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:

See. The yeast is mixing for you.

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.

Towel method.

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.

Just a plain old baking sheet.

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.

Like a pizza except not really.

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.

Enemies.

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.

Both are delicious.

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!

What I’m about to show you is something that has changed my life. When I first heard of it, I thought it seemed a bit too easy and was probably a trick of some sort. I thought, “If it was actually that easy, why doesn’t everybody do it?” After a few months of baking one loaf of no knead bread a week (at least), I can confirm that it is easy. And more people should do it.

So simple.

The recipe could not be simplier. Through some trial and error, I’ve changed mine around a bit from the New York Times one.

Macheesmo No Knead Bread

- 4 cups flour (500 grams). I like to use half bread flour and half whole wheat, but you can just use all purpose flour
- 1/3 teas. active dry yeast. I don’t have a 1/3 of a teaspoon so I just use 1/4 plus a bit. Don’t worry about it.
- 1 2/3 teas. kosher salt. Same deal.
- 2 cups plus 1/6 of a cup water.

Helpful Equipment:
- Le Creuset 7.25 Quart French Oven
- or high quality Cast Iron Dutch Oven

The dry stuff.

Mix up the dry stuff a bit before you add water just to get it all distributed. You don’t need to do any of that proofing business with the yeast. Just throw it in there.

Then add water.

After the water is in there just kind of mix it all around with your hands. If it looks pretty you have mixed too much. Should look like this:

After 10 seconds of stirring.

Cover that bad boy with plastic wrap and let it sit for 20 hours. It way more than doubles in size. Probably triples or quadruples.

20 hours later.

If you touch this glob you will note that it is very moist. You couldn’t really knead it if you wanted to. So don’t. Just “pour” it onto a table with some flour.

A snot-like consistency = good

Wait back up. The photo just reminded me. Get out a gross colored towel and put some flour and if you want bran on it like so:

Bran and flour on a towel.

Ok. Back to the dough. It is on your floured surfaced oozing. Sprinkle some more flour on it and sort of fold it over into a rough round shape. A ball. An ugly ball.

Nothing fancy.

Next, pick up this wet mess and put it ugly side down on the bran/flour towel. This is the first time this concoction looks like something you would want to eat.

Flip it!

Fold over the edges of the towel and let this rise for 2 more hours. I know. That seems like a long time. Trust me. Worth it. Go play a video game or something.

Next you want to get out one of these.

A very expensive pot.

This is the hardest part about this recipe. Getting this pot. It is expensive. Obviously you don’t need this exact pot to make this bread. What you are basically looking for is a really sturdy cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic pot. You want something 6 or 8 quarts with a lid. I use this pot for everything. It is fantastic and worth every cent.

Back to the bread. The reason you want to use a pot like this is because you probably don’t have a large steam injected oven like a traditional bakery. So you need to create a smaller oven (the pot) that keeps the steam and heat from escaping. About thirty minutes before you are ready to cook, put just the pot (not lid) in the oven at 500 degrees. You want this thing blazing hot. Then take your bread and flip it again and set it in the pot. If you get it lopsided that is fine, it will straighten a bit during baking. This is what I ended up with:

You can't see it but the pot is 500 degrees.

Put on the lid and cook for 30 minutes at 500 degrees. Then take off the lid (watch out for the escaping steam when you take the lid off). Bake for 15 more minutes to get a nice crust. Pull it out and try to get the bread out of the pot without burning yourself.

Then cool the beast on a wire rack. I don’t have a wire rack. I use the wire handles from my pizza stone or a spare oven rack. Same idea. You will ultimately end up with this:

This is real bread.

This will change your life. After eating it with sandwiches for a week or two, I tried a normal piece of store bought bread and I’m not sure I can eat it anymore as weird as that sounds.

While this post was kind of long, let me assure you, it is NOT hard. It takes a day, but probably takes less than 15 or 20 minutes of actual WORK. It’s mostly just waiting. And it is worth the wait.