no-knead bread. (from Steiny via M. Bittman)

I really love to bake. I don't claim to be an expert, but I'm great at following recipes and generally have good results. But there has forever been this gap in my baking repertoire: BREAD. I've never attempted a proper bread (with yeast that is- quick breads I can do.)

Howie and I received a great gift of a pizza stone for our wedding and never were able to get the crust right- I just haven't had enough experience with yeast, I think. So when I emailed my bud Steiny for his famous bread recipe, I was a little nervous. Luckily, it turns out that the hardest thing about making this bread is cleaning up afterwards!

No-knead bread is really simple and gives a great result. We ate ours with the Cafe Latte chili that I made the next day. The recipe is below and you can watch the NYT video here to get an idea of the process.

No-Knead Bread (Steiny via M. Bittman, J. Lahey)

The recipe makes 1 large round loaf (Le Cruset dutch oven size) but is easily halved or doubled.  (For my tiny oven I used 1/4 the recipe and it was fine!)

7 cups flour total. *pure white flour works fine and tastes great. but, as long as 5 cups is white flour, you can replace 2 cups with other flours or grains like oats. 

1tb sea salt

1tsp instant yeast

3.25+ cups tap water (Steiny says 50/50 milk/H2O works well too!)

1) Mix flour, salt and yeast in a big bowl with a whisk. Add 3c water and mix with a spoon. The dough will be tough and look unpromising (like a shaggy wet dog) and have lots of dry spots in it. The goal is to wet it just until the dry spots are gone. It should be difficult to stir but not sticky/sticking to the side of the bowl. (both Steiny and I have added too much water- the bread turns out fine, but the dough is a little extra floppy...)

2) Once the dough is mixed, cover the bowl with a plastic bag and let it sit on the countertop for at least 12 hours, 18 is better. The dough is ready when its bubbly and shiny and looks transformed. It will be pretty sticky.

3) Place a large covered dutch oven or casserole (glass, ceramic, or cast iron seem to work) in oven and preheat oven to 450F (230C). This is the most important part of the process. You don't need any grease at all, but the cover is crucial, as is the pre-heating. You're creating a mini-steam oven. 

4) Turn out the dough onto well floured surface. Handling it gently, take the edges and fold them under the loaf itself 3-4 times, or until you've acheived a generally ball-shaped lump of dough with a uniform surface. (watch the video link above if you're confused about this!)

5) When the oven is preheated, place the dough in the preheated pan and cover immediately with the preheated top; if it stays in a ball shape that's great but if it falls apart you'll be fine. Mine fell apart. (Also its good to use easy to wash oven mitts or hot pads- after handling the dough you need to cover it and I made quite a mess of my only oven mitt...)

6) Bake 30 minutes covered, then remove the cover and bake 30 additional minutes, or until the itnernal temp is 200F. Remove to a rack and let cool for at least 4 hours; this bread does not cut well when its warm.