Jim Lehay's no-knead bread

Jim Lahey's no-knead bread

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This recipe was developed by Jim Lahey, the proprietor of Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhattan. He took two ideas and put them together with some extremely simple instructions to make what is possibly the world's easiest bread recipe. The quality of the bread compared to the ease of making it is outstanding. The end product is an artisan-style loaf that would be expensive from a bakery and not as fresh. It is a good all-purpose bread and makes fantastic sandwiches.

This recipe has evolved slightly since first publication. Here is the original recipe with only a tiny modification (more salt):

Lead time: 13.5-19.5 hours, however, actual prep time is only a few minutes!

Tools

• Standard oven
• Mixing bowl
• Clean cloth kitchen towel with a smooth weave; don't use terry or other textured fabric
• Big plastic containers with fitting lids
• Wooden spoon
• Dough scraper (these are sometimes sold as plastic pot scrapers); not absolutely necessary but helps to handle the dough which is very soft ("slack").
• Flour wand, flour dredge, sieve, or other means of flouring a kitchen countertop
• Measuring cups and measuring spoons
• HEAT-RESISTANT round metal or ceramic casserole dish with lid; approximately 5 quarts works best, 7 quarts is OK. Beware that many modern casserole dishes have phenolic (a type of heat-resistant plastic) handles whose heat-tolerance is close to its limits with this recipe; they are not recommended. Use all-metal or all-ceramic casserole.

The webmaster uses a Lodge(tm) brand cast-iron pot, like this one minus the spiral handle:



This looks like an excellent value for a very long-life pot that you can also use for roasting or stovetop cooking.

Ingredients

• 3 cups bread or hard flour
• 1/4 tsp dry instant yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 1.5 cups water

Preparation

This looks like a lot of steps, but it's not. It's just a detailed description of an incredibly easy process.

1. Mix the flour, yeast, and salt.
2. Add water and stir with wooden spoon until all the flour is incorporated. Watch out for dry lumps of flour.
3. Put the dough in the big plastic container, put a lid on it, and keep it in a mildly warm spot for approximately 12-18 hours. If the plastic is translucent you can probably spot the bubbles to see when it's ready; otherwise watch for bubbles on top of the dough.
4. Thoroughly dust your work surface (kitchen countertop works well) with flour.
5. Gently scrape the dough onto the floured work surface; try not to tear the delicate threads of gluten, but push the dough out of the bowl, scraping the sides of the container, intact.
6. Pull the sides of the dough up to the middle and pinch them together to make a round loaf. Sprinkle the top with flour.
7. Flour the towel and put it on the mixing bowl. This will be our bread-form.
8. Place the dough seem side DOWN onto the cloth in the mixing bowl.
9. Let rest for approximately 1.5 hours (depends on temperature); the last half hour of resting, preheat the oven AND the pot to 450 degrees Fahrenheit / 232 Celcius.
10. Now be very careful, as the pot and the oven will be very hot. Using oven mitts, open the oven, pull out the pot, uncover it, gently drop in the dough seam side up (was the bottom of the loaf), put the lid back on, and put it back into the oven.
11. Bake for half an hour, then pull off the lid and bake for 15 minutes to half an hour longer to brown and crisp the crust. Bread is done when a beautiful light golden brown color.
12. Now here is a problem: my black cast-iron pot will cook the whole thing in half an hour, but the original recipe calls for half an hour with the lid on, and 15 minutes to half an hour with the lid off. This probably depends on the material that the pot is made from; cast iron probably cooks faster than enameled pots. If yours is already browned after half an hour, take it out, and next time turn the heat down to 415 when baking.
13. Using oven mitts, take the pot out of the oven, put it on a heat-resistant surface, and pull the bread out of the pot and put it on a cooling rack. Bread is ready in approximately 20 minutes. If baked correctly the crust will noticeably make a crackling noise as it cools.

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