No Knead Bread Recipe

No Knead Bread Recipe
aka Lazy Man’s Homemade Bread

This recipe helped me fall in love with bread again after years of swearing off all “carbs” – bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, et al. Now I eat bread everyday and can’t imagine my life without it.

The thing I love about this no knead bread recipe is its simplicity. In total, minus baking time, the recipe takes 5 minutes to put together, mostly because the quantities are measured on a scale and not measured in volume. Measuring quantities in weight versus measuring them in volume makes baking much more exact and more easily guarantee a superb end result. I also love this recipe because the recipe includes only 4 ingredients, all of which can be found in every grocery store.

For this no knead bread recipe, I bake the bread in a terracotta clay oven so the bread bakes with a divine crust and soft sourdough like inside. The concept of using the terracotta oven is very similar to using a pizza stone in that the clay helps the bread bake without burning and helps give the bread its dynamo crusty outer layer. Terracotta clay ovens can be bought at your local cooking or hardware store. If you don’t have nor want to buy one, this recipe can be made in a normal bread pan.

No Knead Bread Recipe
750 grams flour (white, whole wheat, rye, or a combination of all three)
1/4 teaspoon dry yeast
3 teaspoons salt
100 grams nuts or seeds (pumpkin seeds, linen seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, pine nuts)
600 ml water

1. Combine the flour, dry yeast, salt and nuts/seeds into a large mixing bowl. Next, make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the water. Stir until all ingredients are mixed together (no dry flour remains in the bowl).

2. Lightly cover the dough with white flour, then cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow it to sit in a warm but dry place for 12-24 hours to allow the bread dough to ferment.

3. Good places to let the bread ferment are near a warm fireplace, near a heating vent or on a top shelf in the warmest room in your house. The longer the dough ferments, the better the taste.

4. Once the dough has fermented, you are ready to bake.

5. Pre-heat your oven with the clay oven inside of it, at 250 C/480 F for 45 mins. The clay oven needs to be very, very warm before you add the bread dough to it.

6. Once the clay oven is warm enough, add plain white flour to the inside to prevent the bread from sticking, and scoop the dough into the clay oven. Cover the clay oven with the lid, and put it back in the oven for 50 minutes to bake the bread completely.

***If you are using a normal bread pan, pre-heat the pan for 15 mins. before adding the dough to it. It does not take as long for the bread pan to warm up but it still needs to be warm in order to create a crust on the outside of the bread.

7. When the baking time has finished, CAREFULLY remove the clay oven, take off the lid and remove the bread from the clay oven with a silicone spatula. Dust off the extra flour on the bottom of the bread and place it on a cooling rack for at least 30 minutes before serving.