Bread - Home Made Bread - Easy and Delicious

I love baking. Years ago, I discovered the No Knead Bread recipe and realized that I was turning out such delicious breads with it that I wasn't moving forward with trying other recipes. It is still my fallback, even though I am back to being more creative with my baking these days. It is a recipe that, if you have a cast iron pot or Le Creuset or other pot with cover that can handle 500 degrees of oven heat, that's all you need to turn out spectacular bread in your own home. Gelatinization. An important word here. This is a very wet dough which is why only nominal folding is required in order to distribute the yeast before the final rise. The small amount of yeast, in this wet environment will grow, spreading through the dough over the 8-10 hour time frame. Make the dough before you go to bed on Friday night. Do the fold when you wake up. Let it rise for that second time and follow the instructions for preheating the oven and the vessel.

No Knead Bread Recipe:

Jay Francis –

Ingredients:

3 cups King Arthur bread flour ( I like the flavor of King Arthur bread flour. You will, too)

1 5/8 cups of water

1/4 tsp. rapid rise yeast

1  tsp. Kosher salt, or more if you like saltier bread

            Parchment paper, crumbled and re-opened, to rest the dough in for the second rise and then for placing into the cast iron pot so it doesn’t stick

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast, salt. Add 1 5/8 cups (400 ml) water and stir until blended; the dough will be shaggy and very sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Or, use a plastic bowl or container that has a snap lid instead. I use either a Tupperware bowl or a Rubbermaid container, either of which has a locking lid. I let it rise in the oven but just so it isn't affected by the cold air from our air conditioner blowing in the kitchen. Oven doesn't have to be pre-heated.

Let the dough rest at room temperature until the surface is dotted with bubbles, 8 hours.

Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Sprinkle the dough with a little flour and fold the dough over onto itself once or twice.  This helps distribute the yeast throughout the dough, resulting in a little better bread.

Grab a portion of parchment paper and crumple it so that it has four corners for lifting and fits into the bowl that you did the rising of the dough in. You are going to return the dough to the container and let it rise for two hours. Putting it on the parchment will allow you to lift it out of the bowl and put it in the super heated cast iron pot or dutch oven when the time comes. Put the dough on top of the parchment paper, return the dough to its proofing container, covered, until the dough is more than double in size and does not readily spring back when poked with a finger, about 2 hours.

At least 30 minutes before the dough is ready, put a 2 3/4-quart cast-iron pot or dutch oven with its cover in the oven and preheat the oven to 450°F.

Carefully remove the pot from the oven. Lift the dough by the parchment paper edges and lower into the pot. Cover with the lid and bake for 25 minutes. Uncover and continue baking until the loaf is browned, 5-10 minutes more. Sometimes, though, I just bake for 30 minutes without removing the cover.

Remove the pot from the oven and gently lift out the bread with the parchment paper edges to cool. Be careful not to burn yourself.