No Knead Bread

I made this bread more out of curiosity than anything.  My friend and fellow food blogger Ashlie sent me this link to a recipe for a no-knead bread that was published in the New York Times.  I was very curious and intrigued: how do the glutens properly develop without kneading?  I had to try it out to see for myself.

Ingredients (1 loaf):
3 cups bread flour
1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 5/8 cup water

I always marvel at the simplicity of bread ingredients.  Okay, so here are the three dry ingredients.

Then, add the water.  I aimed for a comfy warm water, somewhere between lukewarm and room temperature.

Okay!

Then you mix it all together with a spoon and you get this sticky mess.

That's it.  Now you cover the bowl with wrap and let it sit for 12-18 hours in a warm room.  If you're baking in the summer, great.  If you live in a cold region like me and it's the middle of winter, you might keep it near-ish the heat vents or in the kitchen near the stove. 

After it has sat for a while, you'll see that your bread baby has grown in size, and the top will be speckled with little holes (eek). 

Plop dough onto a lightly-floured surface.

Fold it over on itself a few times and let it sit 15 minutes.

Now, use some corn meal to coat the exterior of the dough...

And plop it on a corn meal covered surface seam-side-down.

Cover it with a towel and let rest for 2 hours.

Once it has rested, it should have doubled in size.

Heat oven to 450F for about half an hour with an oven-friendly heavy covered pot.  I found that my Le Creuset was perfect for the job, but any ceramic or cast iron skillet will be fine.  When oven is heated, toss the dough into the pot.  I say toss because you have to use a rather quick motion to get it in there.

Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes, then 15-30 more minutes until the crust is golden brown.

Here we are!

Not bad for a no-knead dough!

A pretty good sized loaf, though I could stand for it to be a little taller. 

Let's see what the crumb (inside of bread) looks like...

Nice!  Very respectable loaf of bread!

This was delicious to eat with just simple buttery spread, but also hearty enough to be a good soup bread.

Thanks to the creator of this recipe, Jim Lahey, and the NYT for the awesome recipe!

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For a printable (and original!) version of this recipe, please click here.