No Knead Bread Revisited

Several years ago I posted a few no knead bread recipes (here, here and here) and over the years we (read JT) have continued to make this mindless, easy, delicious and beautiful artisan looking bread so I thought it would be good to revisit the post and update with new images. You may recall that this was JTs baby and to this day, he is the maker of this tasty bread. I also wish to add a caveat that this bread is CRAZY EASY to make so, all you yeast doubters (you know who you are) I strongly encourage you to make this bread. Seriously, you can’t fail!

We made this batch for Valentine’s Day to be served with the meatless balls and boy was it successful — our dinner guests loved it so much they asked for the recipe and then they made it the very next day! How cool is that?

This is our friend’s bread, pictured in their spankin’ new kitchen!

I don’t know what happened to the recipe but it disappeared. I have included it now. I must give a shout-out to A-Boleyn from Live Journal, who asked some questions which lead me to discover that the recipe went AWOL.

No Knead Bread

No Knead Bread Ingredients:

• 375 g (3 cups) all purpose, unbleached flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp bread machine yeast
• 1/4 tsp red wine vinegar
• 380 mL (1 2/3 cup) warm water

Directions:

1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl, mix with a wooden spoon.
2. In a measuring cup, add the red wine vinegar to the water and stir. Pour the vinegar water mixture into the flour and stir with a wooden spoon until combined. The dough will be shaggy. Let rest for 4 hours in a warm area. JT usually puts a piece of clear plastic wrap over the top of the bowl.
3. Dough is ready when it is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour work surface and place the dough on it, sprinkle a little more flour on top and fold the dough over itself a couple of times. Leave bread on the work surface and cover loosely with the recycled plastic wrap from the first rising and allow to rest for 15 more minutes.
4. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, gently and quickly shape the dough into a ball (JR does this by simply pushing and folding, no kneading necessary). Generously dust a clean cotton towel (not terry cloth) with cornmeal and lay dough ball directly on it, seam-side down. Dust dough lightly with more cornmeal and cover with another clean cotton towel.
5. Dough should rest 2 hours or until it is more than double in size. At least 30 minutes before you wish to bake the bread, heat the oven to (232° C) 450° F. Put a 6 to 8 quart heavy cast iron pot with a lid into the oven and heat both oven and pot up as the oven warms. When the pot is heated through, add some cornmeal to the bottom and gently roll the dough into the hot pot, seam side up (JT does this by taking the cloth that the bread rested on and just roll it off the cloth into the pot). Be careful, the pot is extremely hot. It will look like a mess, but it will be OK. Cover with lid and bake for 35 minutes, then remove lid and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
6. Cool on wire rack.

The crust is incredible. Sadly, the photo is not.

The baguette is about 25-30cm (12 inches) long x 7-8 cm (3 inches) wide and the boule is about 15-20cm in diametre, perfect for 4 for a meal!

Notes:

• We usually make one large boule out of this recipe but the last time we did 1 small boule ( in a 1.8L cast iron enamel pot with lid) and 1 baguette (in a similar pan as this)
• If you use Le Creuset then make sure you change the lid knob out to a metal one because the black ones shouldn’t be heated at that high temperature.

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