Our daily bread: super-easy
Perhaps you read the last recipe in my little bread-recipe series. Perhaps you even tried it out. Now, back for your baking pleasure, is another favorite bread recipe that I frequently make for dinner. It's not quite as fast as the last recipe, but it is just as easy. Perhaps even easier. It's No-Knead Artisan Bread. If you can stir, then you can make this recipe! Seriously, all you do is measure, dump and stir.
So this recipe can take as short a time as about 3 hours, or as long a time as overnight. I think it would work well to mix the ingredients, stick the bowl in the fridge, and then come home and bake it at night. Or, if you're a stay-at-home type, you can do what I usually do, which is start it some time mid-afternoon, leave it sitting on the counter for awhile, and then wander back into the kitchen and bake it some time in the evening.
I got the original recipe from the Democrat-Herald, but I've modified it a bit. Here's my version:
Easy No-Knead Bread
Ingredients:
1½ tablespoons regular yeast
1 tablespoon salt
3 cups warm water
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups white flour (you can change the flour ratio here to suit your preferences)
Flour for handling the dough
1 cup of hot water
Directions:
Measure yeast and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add 3 cups of lukewarm water (no hotter than 100 degrees - water that feels warm to the wrist), and stir the mixture until the salt dissolves.
Add flour to the liquid mixture, and stir until there are no dry lumps or patches of flour. The dough will look rough, but this is OK. I sometimes add a little more than the 6 cups called for. You want to be able to touch the surface of the dough and perhaps pull a chunk off; it needs to be dough, not goo, but it's not going to be a smooth dough the way it would look if you kneaded it, either. Cover the bowl with a clean cloth towel or paper towels. Let the dough rise, at room temperature, for up to 5 hours, or as little as two.
Preheat oven to 450.
Flour your hands well, and gently shape the dough into one large loaf. I sometimes prefer to make it into two vaguely oval shapes and use two regular size loaf pans--it cooks faster that way. Use enough flour so the dough does not stick to your hands. The dough should fill whatever baking pan (or pans) you use, to at least half full. You can take a sharp knife and make a slash or two in the top of the loaf if you wish.
Put your bread in the oven and also place a cup, filled with water, on the lower oven rack and immediately close the door. (I don't really know what the water is supposed to do. Release steam into the oven that somehow affects the baking, I guess. But the recipe says it, and it's easy to stick some water in there, so I do it.)
For one large loaf, bake about 60 minutes. For two smaller loaves, bake 30 minutes. They will have a hard, crispy, dark brown crust.
Once it is out of the oven, remove the bread from the pan, and let it cool on a hard surface.
This makes a really yummy bread with a hard, crispy crust. It's not a lovely, perfect looking loaf, but a more sloppy, "rustic" bread. It goes perfect with soup. You can dip the crusty bread in the warm soup and it's so good. It's what we had for dinner last night. The girls usually tear off their crust and just eat the soft inside of the bread, but they give the crusts to Eric and I and we eat them, so we don't mind.
As I said, I usually bake this in two smaller loaves. This gives you one loaf to eat with dinner that night, and extra to have for toast in the morning. It make super yummy toast, too. Mmmm...can you tell I really love bread?
I just noticed this note on the original recipe: If the dough is refrigerated overnight, or even up to a couple of days, let it sit at room temperature for at least 1½ hours, then shape the dough, and bake as mentioned above. So I guess it wouldn't quite work to leave the dough in the refrigerator, take it out when you come home from work, and pop it in the oven to have with dinner. Unless you get home from work two and a half hours before you were planning on eating, which I never did, back in the day when I actually had an office job. So maybe plan it for a weekend day instead.
Less than 24 hours later, this half-loaf is all that's left of the original two loaves. That's how good this bread is.
So this recipe can take as short a time as about 3 hours, or as long a time as overnight. I think it would work well to mix the ingredients, stick the bowl in the fridge, and then come home and bake it at night. Or, if you're a stay-at-home type, you can do what I usually do, which is start it some time mid-afternoon, leave it sitting on the counter for awhile, and then wander back into the kitchen and bake it some time in the evening.
I got the original recipe from the Democrat-Herald, but I've modified it a bit. Here's my version:
Easy No-Knead Bread
Ingredients:
1½ tablespoons regular yeast
1 tablespoon salt
3 cups warm water
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups white flour (you can change the flour ratio here to suit your preferences)
Flour for handling the dough
1 cup of hot water
Directions:
Measure yeast and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add 3 cups of lukewarm water (no hotter than 100 degrees - water that feels warm to the wrist), and stir the mixture until the salt dissolves.
Add flour to the liquid mixture, and stir until there are no dry lumps or patches of flour. The dough will look rough, but this is OK. I sometimes add a little more than the 6 cups called for. You want to be able to touch the surface of the dough and perhaps pull a chunk off; it needs to be dough, not goo, but it's not going to be a smooth dough the way it would look if you kneaded it, either. Cover the bowl with a clean cloth towel or paper towels. Let the dough rise, at room temperature, for up to 5 hours, or as little as two.
Preheat oven to 450.
Flour your hands well, and gently shape the dough into one large loaf. I sometimes prefer to make it into two vaguely oval shapes and use two regular size loaf pans--it cooks faster that way. Use enough flour so the dough does not stick to your hands. The dough should fill whatever baking pan (or pans) you use, to at least half full. You can take a sharp knife and make a slash or two in the top of the loaf if you wish.
Put your bread in the oven and also place a cup, filled with water, on the lower oven rack and immediately close the door. (I don't really know what the water is supposed to do. Release steam into the oven that somehow affects the baking, I guess. But the recipe says it, and it's easy to stick some water in there, so I do it.)
For one large loaf, bake about 60 minutes. For two smaller loaves, bake 30 minutes. They will have a hard, crispy, dark brown crust.
Once it is out of the oven, remove the bread from the pan, and let it cool on a hard surface.
This makes a really yummy bread with a hard, crispy crust. It's not a lovely, perfect looking loaf, but a more sloppy, "rustic" bread. It goes perfect with soup. You can dip the crusty bread in the warm soup and it's so good. It's what we had for dinner last night. The girls usually tear off their crust and just eat the soft inside of the bread, but they give the crusts to Eric and I and we eat them, so we don't mind.
As I said, I usually bake this in two smaller loaves. This gives you one loaf to eat with dinner that night, and extra to have for toast in the morning. It make super yummy toast, too. Mmmm...can you tell I really love bread?
I just noticed this note on the original recipe: If the dough is refrigerated overnight, or even up to a couple of days, let it sit at room temperature for at least 1½ hours, then shape the dough, and bake as mentioned above. So I guess it wouldn't quite work to leave the dough in the refrigerator, take it out when you come home from work, and pop it in the oven to have with dinner. Unless you get home from work two and a half hours before you were planning on eating, which I never did, back in the day when I actually had an office job. So maybe plan it for a weekend day instead.
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