Many of you are familiar with the term “no knead bread” which has gained much notoriety recently due to coverage in the New York times and being featured in several bakeries also in New York City who offer several types of this bread.
For some reason, baking bread frightens many people. I believe that making bread at home is simple, more healthful and becoming a requirement due to lack of good baked bread and to low quality breads that are filled with science. This new fangled no-knead method really takes the fear out of it and makes it so easy literally anybody who can mix a few ingredients together and who can operate the stove, can make killer home-baked bread.
I developed my own recipe that is a combo of bread flour and whole wheat flour that is started with a sponge, which is to say a slightly sour pre-mix that goes into the final dough. This bread requires no kneading and hardly any shaping, it’s just dropped into a pre-heated Dutch oven (I like ceramic, more about that soon!) and baked with the cover on for 30 minutes, then with cover off for an additional 30 minutes. The oven is pre-heated to 400 degrees.
The results are awesome to say the least, all the qualities you’d be willing to pay a fancy bakery for; crisp exterior, large round boulle shape, interesting crumb interior and slightly sour flavor. Pretty much perfect. We usually make a double batch then freeze one so we always have it on hand. It will keep in the freezer for 2-3 months if stored properly.
By using this method, your always ready to have incredible toast with eggs, bread to make garlic bread, bread for a pb&j and perfect, I’m talking PERFECT bread for a grilled cheese sandwich.
I will be sharing a recipe on this site soon to go along with a video that way you will have no excuses!
Check back soon.
~Keith