No Knead Bread... my take....

First off... I love this bread recipie. It has so many options, just in what size pan to cook it in. Baked in an oval pan, it could mimick a nice ciabatta and baked in a round pan its a nice crusty and chewey well ... round ciabatta, but rustic.

Thank you Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery for your incredible bread and thank you New York Times for the recipe adaptation.

this recipe is neither blogged with permission but typed exactly as originally printed...please don't sue me... I love this bread and want to be able to afford to make it and buy ingredients... NYTimes you get ALL the credit

3 cups all purpose flour or bread flour for dusting
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt.

(I added about 20 more chunks of yeast / 20 crystals or so of not instant yeast but Red Star Active Dry Yeast as it was all I could find at Sunflower Market when I went shopping and I am at high altitude, I also minimized the salt and used a dash less than the recipe called for, but did use kosher salt versus conventional table salt. I also added two teaspoons additional water).



Add 1 5/8 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky.

(This was easy enough...I used luke warm tap water, in order to not over activate the yeast. The dough slid right off the spatuala and stuck to the other dough easily, which I found really pleasent. I could smell the yeast but not at all in a strong way, but it was encouraging that so far I had done everything right).





Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferable about 18 at warm room temperature about 70 degrees.

(easy enough)











2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.

(it was a little hard to tell if there were bubbles but it was definately almost triple its original size, smelled of yeast dough and it had been about 17 hours... I couldn't wait the additional hour... )






Lightly flour a work surface and place the dough on it, sprinkle with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosley with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.


(The dough came out of the bowl flawlessly, just rolled out. I have to admit I completely over floured the board which you can see on the right. I was concerned about sticking, but it really wasn't at all necessary to use that much. About a tablespoon on the board would have been equally effective. I used the same plastic wrap that covered the bowl as size wise it totally worked).






3. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or corn meal; put dough side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal.

(Again, I went a little batty with the flour, generously to me meant something completely different than what the author of the recipe called for. I went totally overboard. ... 1/4 cup for both the top and bottom will certainly do.)


Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

(my bread did not double in size at all, maybe it rose about 1/2 but certainly not double. I had a lot of activity in the kitchen in the two hours where maybe that effected the second rise I don't know)





4. At least a half-hour before the dough is ready, heat the oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6 - 8 quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from the oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over nto pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake the pan once or twice if the dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 or 30 minutes, until load is beautifully browned.


(This is the dough in the pan...again you will see why it is problematic to use so much flour to the towel, it all pretty much ends up in a scorching hot dutch oven or Calphalon chili pot -as I used - it doesn't effect the baking process but it becomes part of the bread at this point and its difficult to dust off. I also did NOT take the pan out of the oven, I put the bread dough into the pan directly in the oven basically, but I have a lower oven and this was beneficial. I baked with the glass lid on for 35 minutes and the additional time was about 20 minutes, until it was the color that I prefer, a light golden brown. My oven also cooks unevenly so I had to move the pot around once, but that is not called for nor necessary if your oven cooks evenly.)


And this is the bread cooled off. I let the bread cool in the pan about 15 minutes then out of the pan another 15 minutes.

This was torture. But well worth the wait.

I need to remember the importance of patience. It was a long process, but worry free. Mix it, leave it on the counter for 18 hours and really that is about it. Bake it and cool it and perfection.

It made a beautiful and crusty and chewy loaf and I look forward to making a second loaf with far less dusting flour this weekend.



I have used the bread for toast with butter and plum preserves for breakfast. The bread is hole filled and the jam dips into nooks and crannies and is delicious.

I will use the remainder for croutons for a salad this weekend. Bake cubes of the bread up with a drizzle of basil olive oil and parmeasean cheese with roasted garlic. I have to go to a pot luck and am supposed to bring a salad of some sort on Friday. They are thinking I will bring jello... no such luck my little chickadees... I am bringing a yummy salad with homemade croutons.

The hardest part for me baking this the first time, was 1) finding a pan, I really wanted a Le Crueset 5 quart French Oven but couldn't afford one and no stores had a regular dutch oven, thus the Calphalon Chili Pot cooker thing, it worked beautifully though. It is a 5 quart pan which was perfect, I think an 8 quart pan might cause the dough to be a little flatter, just because of spreading while baking, 2) being patient for 18 hours waiting for the bread to proof 3) over doing it on the dusting of flour and 4) waiting for the bread to cool to try it.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to let me know. This was a great recipe and deserves all the internet lovin' that it is getting. Quite the phenom and well worth it.

Happy Baking!