Recipes

13 Nov 2024

No-Knead Bread

This recipe is adapted from the Mark Bittman/Jim Lahey recipe in the New York Times. I have made changes that reflect a few things that I found worked better for me. You’ll also see a few options for additions I’ve enjoyed. I may come back and add more of those in the future — I’ll see what works!

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the flours, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Add any additions at this point, then add the water and stir until you have a shaggy, sticky dough. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, then cover1 and leave it to rest for 12-18 hours.2

  2. Remove the dough from the bowl and place it on a lightly floured work surface. Fold the dough over itself 5 times3, then leave it to rest for 15 minutes.

  3. On your floured work surface, shape the dough into a round loaf or ball. Cover it with a lightly floured cotton towel4 and leave it to rise for 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

  4. 30 minutes before the end of the rise, place a covered dutch oven on a rack set in the middle of your oven. Preheat the oven to 450°.

Additions

1.

Footnotes

  1. Recipes often suggest covering bread dough with plastic wrap. This winds up being pretty wasteful, I think, so I prefer to use a bowl with a cover. 

  2. I tend to err on the side of leaving the dough for 18 hours. My house runs cold, so leaving the yeast to work for a little while longer makes a happier loaf. I also find the flavor is deeper after the longer rise. 

  3. Many recipes, including the original, recommend a single fold. That’s all well and good, but I like that the additional folds give the final loaf a little more structure. 

  4. Not one of the fuzzy ones! You’ll want just plain cloth for this.