With all the excitement over no-knead bread recipes, I’ve been wanting to try this new easy way of bread baking. Problem with me not trying it up until now, was the whole idea of preheating my baking dish in a 450°F oven until it becomes mega hot. Handling hot stuff is not my forte; it scares me, since I tend to burn myself a lot. Fortunately, I came across a few bread baking recipes that puts the dough into a cold pot then into a cold oven. I tried it this way and it worked wonderfully, as you can see by the picture. By letting the dough sit for 18-24 hours it takes on an awesome sourdough-like flavor.
No-Knead Bread
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon dry instant yeast
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups warm water
Instructions
- In a bowl combine flour, yeast and salt, add water all at once and stir. Dough should be a little soft and moist.Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 18 – 24 hours.
- After about 18 – 24 hours and dough has risen, sprinkle flour over your hands just enough to be able to pull the dough away and down from the sides of the bowl, this is so the dough doesn't stick to your fingers. Remove dough from bowl onto a floured surface. Gently fold dough over on itself to make a ball, don’t knead the dough.
- Line a deep heatproof pot (ceramic or cast iron or stainless steel and it must have a good fitting lid) with parchment paper, this keeps the dough from sticking to the pot, and makes for very easy removal.
- Place the ball of dough into your parchment lined baking dish. If desired sprinkle top with sunflower seeds or sesame seeds or poppy seed whatever you prefer. With scissors, clip slits on top.
- Put lid on the pot and let dough rise 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
- When dough has risen, place in an unheated oven; turn oven on to 450°F, bake 35 minutes, remove lid, drop oven temperature to 425°F and bake 16 - 20 minutes or until a golden or dark brown.
- Remove bread from pot onto a rack to cool.
- *Note- A narrow pot encourages the bread to rise up instead of slightly flattening out.
