No Knead Bread

Ingredients

• 470 g bread or all-purpose flour
• 10 g salt
• ¼ tsp dry yeast
• 350–450 g lukewarm water

Adapted from a recipe by Jim Lahey written up by Mark Bittman in the New York Times on November 8, 2006.

In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, and yeast. Pour in the water, and mix with a spoon until combined. A note about the amount of water: depending on your climate, the water content of your flour varies quite a bit. Flour is hygroscopic, i.e., it absorb water from the surrounding air. If you live in a humid environment, 100 grams of your flour will include more water than 100 g of flour in dry climate, such as the winters in North where I live. Start with 350 grams of water and add more until the dough feels too wet, doesn’t hold as a ball and pretty much looks ruined. This is the consistency that gives me the best, moist results. If you like your bread drier, use less water.

When you are happy with the dough consistency (I literally spend no more than 30 seconds mixing it, and never over-think the amount of water), cover the bowl, and leave for 12-24 hours in room temperature. I find 20 something degrees Celcius is fine.

Flour your working area, dump the dough, and stretch it making ears, fold them over, rotate 90 and repeat. Or just punch the dough with your fist so that it goes flat. The idea is to have a second rise.

Sprinkle oil in the bowl and put the dough back and let it rise for another 1.5–2 hours. The oil gives the bread a lovely crust, and also helps in releasing the dough from the bowl.

30 minutes before starting to bake, heat the oven to 230 degrees Celcius. I use convection oven, regular should work similarly. Place a heavy pot in the oven so that it is very hot when you put the dough in it.

When the pot and oven are hot, sprinkle some flour on the bottom of the pot. Dump the dough in the pot so that the oily surface is on top. Sprinkle some finger salt on the bread.

Bake 30 minutes with the lid on, then 15 minutes without a lid.

Let rest 20–30 minutes on a rack so that the water content in the bread has time to settle.