Easiest Bestest Bread Ever!

This is one of those never-ending Fridays, when the weekend is just hours away but it never seems to get here!

So to pass the time, I thought I’d post a couple of recipes for you.

First, my absolute best-ever bread recipe. If you like bread—even if you’ve never tried to bake your own before—you have to try this recipe. It’s delicious, and has a delicious crunchy crust that I’ve never been able to get with any other recipe. It’s easy, almost fool-proof, and makes great toasted sandwiches, if it lasts long enough! I like it with cheese, salami and homemade tomato salsa (I’ll post the recipe at some stage!). Ours usually disappears in no time – its to die for fresh out of the oven with nothing but butter.

Its basically this recipe from Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery, only I’m even lazier with the preparation method than he is.

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Awesome No-Knead Bread

1 5/8 cups water
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour*

Pour the water into a large bowl. Sprinkle yeast over the water, add salt and stir.

Add flour – I generally add it one cup at a time, I find it easier to mix this way. The dough will be very sticky when you’re done.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for at least 12 hours, preferably about 18.** I usually put mine in the microwave so its out of the way.

Dough is ready when it’s huge and bubbly-looking. I use a spatula to scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl and fold it over itself a few times, still in the bowl. This is called “punching the dough down” and will knock a lot of the air out of it.

Let the dough rise again for around 2 hours.

At least half an hour before you want to put the dough in the oven, put a cooking pot /casserole dish/some cooking thingy in the oven and heat to 230 C (450 F). ***

When the dough is ready and the oven is hot, scrape the dough out of the bowl into the hot pot, cover tightly and cook for 30 minutes. You don’t need to oil the pot – it won’t stick, I swear (I didn’t believe it either). Then remove the lid and cook until the crust is as brown as you like it. Cool on a rack.

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* This recipe is now being used in my quest to include more wholegrains in my diet, in a form that The Husband will also eat. I generally don’t like wholegrain bread, but my first experiment with this recipe was a success. I replaced 1 ½ cups of the flour with ½ cup each of wholegrain spelt flour, wholemeal flour and rye flour. The result was browner than I expected but still tasted pretty good. So feel free to experiment!

** I’ve left this for almost 24 hours and it was fine, but a friend of mine left his for 36 hours and it wouldn’t cook through, so more is not necessarily better. I have also left it to rise and then put it in the fridge for 24 hours after punching it down, then let it rise again before cooking, and that was also fine. This recipe is hard to muck up.

*** I’ve used a big steel pasta pot with aluminium foil for the lid, but my favourite thing at the moment is my casserole dish – it has a proper ceramic lid and makes the loaf a better shape. I don’t think it really matters what you use!