NO KNEAD BREAD
NO KNEAD BREAD
#SIAintheKitchen
I’m a baker. Always have, always have been. For some reason, bread has always intimidated me. The active yeast, the kneading, the proofing, the waiting. I have this memory of my only ever experience working with yeast making cinnamon buns with my best friend and it coming out as a complete failure. Non-cohesive, hard and ugly. What were I to do with all the leftover cream cheese frosting!? Oh, the struggles I had before when I was a kid.
Fast forward to 2019, I bought a jar of active yeast because I wanted to conquer my fears and bake bread. Happy to say that I was successful this time around and baked a no knead bread.
I sought to seek out the most simple bread recipe out there – something that was no knead and took the least amount of time to make. Unlucky for me, bread always takes forever but that is mainly time that is spent being inactive.
I had based this recipe on a few different ones and now I can’t seem to find the damn recipe that I was closely following. Darn it. Despite screwing up in step 2, I decided to proceed with baking it. I was so surprised that it worked out! It really was foolproof. The exterior was crusty and the inside was nice and chewy. Once you start to bake it uncovered, I’d keep a careful eye on it as I nearly burnt mine and was a little too toasted for my liking. I would like probably bake it for 10 minutes uncovered because my oven is gets super hot quickly or lower the rack so it be as dark. The exterior of the bread could’ve been less crunchy but that is just my preference.
The flavour of the bread was great though, and the aroma that filled my house was so comforting. Who doesn’t love the smell of freshly baked bread?! I had brought the test loaf to my office and it was devoured pretty quickly with great reviews. Can’t wait to try this again and to serve it up at my next party!
NO KNEAD BREAD – makes 1 loaf (adapted by Pinch of Yum)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp active dry yeast
1 ½ cups room temperature water
Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl.
I had mixed the dry yeast and water together until it was dissolved and mixed it together with the dry ingredients. Apparently you’re not supposed to do this but hey, my loaf still turned out okay!
Form into a rough ball and place into a large bowl and cover with a tea towel. Let proof for 1 hour.
After the bread has proofed for an hour, preheat your oven to 450F. Uncover the bread an re-roll into a ball. Place back into the container and cover with a tea towel to let it proof for another hour.
Once the bread has proofed for a second time, place a piece of parchment paper in a Dutch oven and transfer the bread dough ball and cover with the lid. You may also roll the bread ball in flour but I was too lazy and skipped that.
Bake the bread covered for 30 minutes. After this time, remove the lid and bake for an additional 10 to 20 minutes until nicely bread. Let cool and serve. Bread will stay fresh for two days.