The Basic No Knead Bread Recipe

No- Knead Bread


What you will need:

3 Cups bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoon salt ( I used Kosher)
1/4 teaspoon instant active dry yeast
1 1/3 cups of cool water ( 55 to 65 degrees F)
flour or cornmeal
4 1/2 to 5 1/2 quart heavy pot with lid

Here we go.....Get out a medium size bowl....Stir together the flour,salt, and yeast.  Add cool water, using a wooden spoon, maybe the one you inherited from your grandmother or mom, now stir your dough for about 30 seconds. The dough should be sticky to your touch, like the picture below. 

Here is the easy part....Place a plate over the bowl or in one of your grandmother's tea towel and allow the dough to take a long winters nap at room temperature ( around 72 degrees F). out of the sun for 12 to 18 hours.  This process is called slow rise-fermentation.  This process is what makes this bread taste so amazing... What a perfect  time for you to go live your life on purpose and do something for someone else while your waiting on your bread to wake up, (or also known as fermenting).

Okay let's say 18 hours have gone by and you have done something amazing for someone else. Generously dust your work surface with flour. Use a rubber spatula or your hands to coach the dough out the bowl, being very cordial, your dough is just waking up.  The dough will be very sticky and bubbly on top, it will also be stringy when it comes out of the bowl, (this is the gluten that has developed). Awesome...

Place a cotton or linen tea towel down, maybe the one you used to cover the dough, generously flour the tea towel or cover with corn meal, gently lift your dough off the counter and place the dough on the floured tea towel seam side down.

Cover the dough place it in a warm and cozy place and let it have some peace and quite to recover from all the excitement about becoming a great loaf of bread. When the dough has regained it's composer it will rise a second time and smile at you, by doubling it's size.  ( I have found my dough likes to nap for about 2 hours during this process).

About 30 minutes before your dough gets up from it's cozy nap preheat your oven to 475 degrees F, place your oven rack on a low level in your oven, place a covered 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 quart heavy pot in the center of the rack to preheat....

Being very careful using your pot holders lift the HOT pot out of the oven.  Unfold your tea towel and gently sweet talk your dough out by using your words and hands if necessary... place dough inside pot with seam side up. Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes. 

After the bread has gotten use to it's environment for the 30 minutes, uncover the pot and allow the dough to recieve a new name and walk away with a tan. It is in this moment the dough has become what God created it to become....BREAD :)

John 6:35, " I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."