Really, it's true

Baking bread is easy. I know, I know, you've probably heard that before and found that the recipe in fact involved 10 steps, many hours, and obscure techniques. But this, I swear, really is easy. Put your ingredients (all 4 of them) together in a bowl, mix it up, let it sit, then bake it. That's it. It doesn't really have an intense crustiness but it does have a great full flavor that's a little sour if you let the dough sit long enough.

My technique is kind of an amalgamation of two recipes that have been printed in the NYT in the past couple of years:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=no-knead&st=cse&oref=slogin
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DEEDB153FF932A15752C1A9619C8B63&scp=1&sq=artisan+bread+no-knead&st=nyt

I've taken both those recipes, played with them a little, and come up with a version that suits me just right. The recipe below makes two decent-sized loaves, but quantities are easily adjusted. Basically, you need to have a little more than twice as much flour as water by volume. This recipe also assumes you'll let the bread sit around overnight. If you want it faster, increase the amount of yeast, but I find the flavor just isn't quite the same....




In a big mixing bowl, dissolve 1/2 tablespoon yeast and 1 1/2 tablespoon salt in 3 cups water lukewarm water.

Stir in the flour until fully moistened. The dough should be shaggy and sticky. If dry spots remain add more water a little bit at a time.

Cover with a moist kitchen towel or loosely with plastic wrap, and let sit anywhere from 10 hours to 2 days (or even longer, if you want; just make sure the dough doesn't dry out).

When ready to bake, flour hands and counter well (the dough is pretty sticky). Take half the dough and shape into a boule (it should kind of keep its shape, but don't worry if it's a little flabby) (I usually wrap the other half in plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge until I need another loaf).


Now bread will bake in a hot oven no matter how you go about it exactly. This is just my favorite way of doing it, but it requires a dutch oven or something similar. About 35 minutes at 475 should do the trick whether you have a dutch oven or not.


Preheat oven to 475 degrees with dutch oven in it.

When hot, place dough in dutch oven. Pour a tablespoon of water around the edge onto the hot metal, put cover on immediately, and stick it in the oven.

After 15 minutes, take cover off and bake another 20 minutes or so.

Bread is ready when deep golden brown in color.



See, that wasn't so hard...