Making Almost No-Knead Bread


 

Chris Allingham

Administrator
Staff member
I know we have some excellent breadmakers in the house, so what I'm about to say is not for you. You're already sold on the idea of making your own bread and are better at it than I will ever be.

What I want to say to everyone else is that if you like bread...I mean REALLY like bread...and you've never tried making it yourself...and you own a heavy-bottomed Le Creuset-type Dutch oven (with lid)...you've GOT to try the popular Almost No-Knead bread recipe that's been floating around on the Internet for years.

You'll find versions of the recipe here and here with some helpful videos. Check them out before reading any further.

I tried the recipe many years ago, forgot about it, and just started getting back into it recently. In fact, if you follow TVWBB on Instagram, you may have seen some pics of my bread efforts.

The ingredients are really simple:

  • 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (15 ounces by weight) plus additional for dusting work surface
  • 1⁄4 teaspoon RapidRise instant yeast
  • 1 1⁄2 teaspoons table salt
  • 7 ounces room temperature water
  • 3 ounces cheap lager beer, e.g. Bud
  • 1 Tablespoon white vinegar

Note the "unbleached" flour. I never paid much attention to flour, I didn't know there were bleached and unbleached versions. Apparently, bleached flour is better for cookies, pie crusts, quick breads, muffins, and pancakes, while unbleached flour has a denser texture and provides more structure in baked goods like a yeast bread. Anywho, you'll find unbleached flour sitting right next to bleached flour on the supermarket shelf.

If you've got a kitchen scale, just weigh the 15 ounces of flour in a large mixing bowl, whisk in the yeast and salt, then tare (zero out) the scale and weigh the 7 ounces of water plus 3 ounces of beer. Then add the vinegar.

Use a large rubber spatula to fold the mixture together, scraping up dry flour from the bottom of the bowl, until it all comes together into a shaggy ball. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.

Place a 12"x16" sheet of parchment paper inside a 10" skillet and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead 10 - 15 times. If you don't know how to knead dough (I didn't), the video in the second link shows you how easy it is. However, this dough is very wet and sticky, so I found that spraying my hands with non-stick cooking spray helps, and using a bench scraper to scrape up the dough and fold it over on itself and then pressing it down with my hand works best.

After kneading, shape dough into a ball by pulling edges into the middle. Place dough seam side down on sprayed parchment in skillet, spray surface of dough with non-stick spray, cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for another 2 hours.

To bake, I follow this helpful revision to the original recipe published by Cook's Illustrated magazine that makes this bread easier and safer to make:

Skip the 500*F preheating of the Dutch oven. Instead, place the dough on parchment into a cold Dutch oven, put on the lid, and place into a cold oven. Turn on the oven and set it to 425*F. When the oven reaches 425*F, set the timer for 30 minutes. At the end of 30 minutes, remove the lid and continue baking 20-30 minutes until the bread registers 200*F with an instant-read thermometer. For me, it usually takes just an additional 20 minutes.

The bottom of the loaf gets a little more crispy than I'd like, maybe that has to do with my oven. I experimented with placing a half sheet pan on the rack below the Dutch oven to deflect some of the heat, but that caused it to brown too little. I recently tried placing a round pizza pan about the size of the Dutch oven under it during the last 20 minutes of baking, but that didn't make any difference. If anyone has a tip here, let me know.

I hope you'll give almost no-knead bread a try! You'll be surprised just how delicious it is!

Related thread: NYT NEW! No Knead Bread Faster and White & Whole Grain

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Looks great, Chris! I started my bread making adventure with this same recipe/technique. I'll only add that people should be aware that this bread making thing can be as addicting as BBQ! :)

Rich
 
Looks great, Chris! I started my bread making adventure with this same recipe/technique. I'll only add that people should be aware that this bread making thing can be as addicting as BBQ! :)
I can see why. My wife and I don't wait the full two hours for the loaf to cool, we go in while it's warm but not piping hot, soften some butter or pour some good olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and we'll destroy close to 2/3 of a loaf in a single sitting. There goes dinner! :D
 
Chris, a beautiful loaf!

Do you have space in the oven to raise the rack one level? That often works to even out the heat.

I haven't tried this but considering that you are starting with a cold oven, you might try setting the Dutch oven on a pizza stone. I'm thinking that it will take some time to get the stone up to heat. But it is likely to delay browning of the bottom of the loaf too much and you might wind up with a pale crust on the bottom. It also might affect the overall cooking time due to the heat sink of the stone. I'd save this experiment for last. :)

Rita
 
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ALL UNBLEACHED FLOURS ARE NOT NECESSARILY UNBLEACHED!! Even if they say they are.

The reason is that they contain a chemical called azodicarbonamide . Although it is allowed in so many PPM and is claimed to be used as a flour stabilizer, it is also used as a bleaching agent. In addition, it is also used in manufacturing some products, most notably Yoga mats (it stabilizes the plastics).

It is banned in Europe but NOT in the US or Canada.

Depending on who mfg the flour, they may not need to list that on the ingredient list. You can bet that the cheaper flours (and yes, expensive ones use it too) use it. But then, some don't.

You really really have to check the ingredient list. If it's there, don't buy it.

If you're spending the extra money to buy unbleached flour, make sure it doesn't use this chemical.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt...ain-the-yoga-mat-compound-should-we-care-keep

And it's not just azod... in bread.

From that same article:
For a different perspective, I reached out to bakery industry consultant Theresa Cogswell. She pointed out that "there are many things used in industrial uses" that cross over into food use as well."And the assumption that it's bad for you," she says, is just not accurate.

Take, for instance, sheet rock, or gypsum. It contains calcium sulfate, which is also used as a food additive. In fact, it's used to make tofu.

Hmmm. A vegan favorite contains the same compound that's used to make drywall. Who knew?
 
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Will give that a try. I've been making my own bread for a while now and it is addicting. I started because of two things, one was I couldn't even pronounce half of the ingredients that were listed on a store bought loaf of bread. The other was the store bought breads had no taste or texture.
What got me started was some of the forum members were producing some beautiful loafs of bread. Now I will admit I don't go to extreme levels to make some of the great loafs I've seen on the forum. But I do make a variety of breads that meet my needs and only use basic ingredients.
A great book that has breads from basic to breads that can take a week or more to create is Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish is a great starting point.
 
A great book that has breads from basic to breads that can take a week or more to create is Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish is a great starting point.

That's my bible. And once you've got the method down, it's so easy to improvise. Make sure you use a "grams" electronic scale that goes to ~10lb/4.5 kg. Makes life so much easier. I went so far as to get a jewellers scale (measures down to .01 gm) in addition to the "big" one.

Helps with yeast and salt amounts. Throw away your measuring spoons if you get one :D

AND a 4 (no bigger than 5) quart lodge dutch oven is the perfect size for baking. Anything larger, the bread "flattens out" and is more pancake than loaf.
 
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That's my bible. And once you've got the method down, it's so easy to improvise. Make sure you use a "grams" electronic scale that goes to ~10lb/4.5 kg. Makes life so much easier. I went so far as to get a jewellers scale (measures down to .01 gm) in addition to the "big" one.

Helps with yeast and salt amounts. Throw away your measuring spoons if you get one :D

AND a 4 (no bigger than 5) quart lodge dutch oven is the perfect size for baking. Anything larger, the bread "flattens out" and is more pancake than loaf.

I have both a 4 and a 5 quart dutch ovens and doing two identical loaves there is a world of difference in the finished loafs. Much better shape with the 4 quart.
 

 

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