It’s hard to imagine that the wooded hills in my neighborhood once grew wheat. Yet 150 years ago, Maine was the breadbasket of New England. We’re now beginning to see Maine-grown wheat in markets again: a boon for bread makers who want locally-grown ingredients.
My husband Lloyd has been making our bread for the last year. It has transformed our meals, if not our lives. His loaves are hearty, with a mild sourdough flavor and a crumby texture and crisp crust usually found only in the best bakery breads. If that weren’t enough, this bread is so simple to make, all that’s required is patience.
The technique is forgiving, so even if you are not an experienced baker, don’t be discouraged from trying. Lloyd is a free-wheeling cook who hates to follow recipes exactly, and his bread is good every time.
Our daily breadmaking began with two articles by Mark Bittman, who writes a weekly cooking column for the New York Times. His first piece, published November 8, 2006 generated such enormous response that a month later he devoted a second column to answering readers’ questions and suggesting ways to fine-tune the process.
What is so exciting—or revolutionary-- about this bread recipe? It achieves spectacular and reliable results with no kneading, and no special ingredients or equipment. In short, time does the work. It takes 24 hours to make the bread from start to finish, and for most of that time, the dough does its thing without your help. Flour, water, salt and a small amount of yeast are the easy-to-remember ingredients in the dough, which should be almost, but not quite, too wet to handle. The long, slow rise does the work of kneading, and slightly ferments the flour, giving it a delicious sourdough flavor. A crisp crust—crisp as a professionally baked French baguette—is achieved by baking the wet dough in a covered pot in a very hot oven. Voila! It’s that simple.
Now to the recipe—and we’ll talk more as we go along.
Mark Bittman’s No-Knead Bread
Time: 5 minutes to prepare; 18 – 20 hours to rise; 45- 60 minutes to cook.
3 cups bread flour or all purpose flour
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt (as little as 1 ¼ teaspoons of salt may be used)
Cornmeal or bran as needed to handle the dough
A heavy pot (4 quart cast iron is ideal) with lid. Nothing fancy, but able to withstand a very hot oven. Enameled cast iron, Pyrex and ceramic work too. The right sized pot makes a well-rounded loaf. A pot that is too big will make a wide, flat loaf. (We use an 8 quart cast iron dutch oven, which is too large. I’m still looking for the perfect pot.)
1. In a large bowl combine the flour, yeast and salt. Add to the flour mixture 1 5/8 cups of tepid water and stir until blended. The dough should be shaggy and sticky—almost too wet to handle. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a dish towel, and let rise in a comfortably warm place for 18 hours, more or less, until the surface is pocked with tiny bubbles, and the dough clings with shaggy strands to the sides of the bowl.
(Here it should be said that although you can rise the bread for less time—8 - 12 hours – it will not have the well-developed flavor that a longer rising gives. Letting it rise as much as 24 hours will not affect it adversely unless the air temperature is too high. You will need to experiment to find what works for you and your schedule.)
2. When the dough is ready, dust your hands and the dough with flour, cornmeal or bran, and turn it out onto a well-floured pastry board or clean dish towel (not terry cloth). Flatten dough into a rectangle and fold in thirds. Let rest for 15 minutes. Gather the dough in a loose ball and place it seam side down on a floured towel, dust with more flour or cornmeal, and cover with a second clean dish towel. Let dough rise this time for 2 - 3 hours. When ready, dough will have risen to more than double its size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
(I have had reasonable success shortening the second rise to 1 hour, in a pinch.)
3. 20 minutes before the end of the second rise, put the pot and lid in your oven to preheat to 450. When the oven has reached temperature and the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven. Lift the dough on its towel and with your hand underneath, gently turn it upside down into the pot. (It will look like an uneven blob in the bottom of the pot, but in cooking will straighten out.) Shake the pan to distribute the dough more evenly, if necessary. Cover, and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove lid and bake for an additional 15 – 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. (Time here will depend on your oven: we find we have to reduce the heat to 400 after removing the lid to prevent scorching, and cook for an additional 15 minutes.) Cool on a rack.
If your dough is too wet, it may stick to the towel when you turn it into the hot pot. This is recoverable: quickly scrape the dough that remains on the towel into the pot with the rest of the dough, cover and bake. The dough never sticks to the pot after baking.
You can add other ingredients (cheese, olives, caraway seed, nuts, raisins) after the first mixing, or fold them in before the second rising.
A word about flour:
We have used as much as 100 % whole wheat flour to make the bread, but it has better crumb when lightened with some white. 1/3 wheat to 2/3 white gives reliably good results. Rye is difficult to work with in this recipe. It makes the dough too sticky and is almost impossible to get to rise. I would recommend no more than 20% whole rye flour. Experiment.
My husband Lloyd has been making our bread for the last year. It has transformed our meals, if not our lives. His loaves are hearty, with a mild sourdough flavor and a crumby texture and crisp crust usually found only in the best bakery breads. If that weren’t enough, this bread is so simple to make, all that’s required is patience.
The technique is forgiving, so even if you are not an experienced baker, don’t be discouraged from trying. Lloyd is a free-wheeling cook who hates to follow recipes exactly, and his bread is good every time.
Our daily breadmaking began with two articles by Mark Bittman, who writes a weekly cooking column for the New York Times. His first piece, published November 8, 2006 generated such enormous response that a month later he devoted a second column to answering readers’ questions and suggesting ways to fine-tune the process.
What is so exciting—or revolutionary-- about this bread recipe? It achieves spectacular and reliable results with no kneading, and no special ingredients or equipment. In short, time does the work. It takes 24 hours to make the bread from start to finish, and for most of that time, the dough does its thing without your help. Flour, water, salt and a small amount of yeast are the easy-to-remember ingredients in the dough, which should be almost, but not quite, too wet to handle. The long, slow rise does the work of kneading, and slightly ferments the flour, giving it a delicious sourdough flavor. A crisp crust—crisp as a professionally baked French baguette—is achieved by baking the wet dough in a covered pot in a very hot oven. Voila! It’s that simple.
Now to the recipe—and we’ll talk more as we go along.
Mark Bittman’s No-Knead Bread
Time: 5 minutes to prepare; 18 – 20 hours to rise; 45- 60 minutes to cook.
3 cups bread flour or all purpose flour
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt (as little as 1 ¼ teaspoons of salt may be used)
Cornmeal or bran as needed to handle the dough
A heavy pot (4 quart cast iron is ideal) with lid. Nothing fancy, but able to withstand a very hot oven. Enameled cast iron, Pyrex and ceramic work too. The right sized pot makes a well-rounded loaf. A pot that is too big will make a wide, flat loaf. (We use an 8 quart cast iron dutch oven, which is too large. I’m still looking for the perfect pot.)
1. In a large bowl combine the flour, yeast and salt. Add to the flour mixture 1 5/8 cups of tepid water and stir until blended. The dough should be shaggy and sticky—almost too wet to handle. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a dish towel, and let rise in a comfortably warm place for 18 hours, more or less, until the surface is pocked with tiny bubbles, and the dough clings with shaggy strands to the sides of the bowl.
(Here it should be said that although you can rise the bread for less time—8 - 12 hours – it will not have the well-developed flavor that a longer rising gives. Letting it rise as much as 24 hours will not affect it adversely unless the air temperature is too high. You will need to experiment to find what works for you and your schedule.)
2. When the dough is ready, dust your hands and the dough with flour, cornmeal or bran, and turn it out onto a well-floured pastry board or clean dish towel (not terry cloth). Flatten dough into a rectangle and fold in thirds. Let rest for 15 minutes. Gather the dough in a loose ball and place it seam side down on a floured towel, dust with more flour or cornmeal, and cover with a second clean dish towel. Let dough rise this time for 2 - 3 hours. When ready, dough will have risen to more than double its size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
(I have had reasonable success shortening the second rise to 1 hour, in a pinch.)
3. 20 minutes before the end of the second rise, put the pot and lid in your oven to preheat to 450. When the oven has reached temperature and the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven. Lift the dough on its towel and with your hand underneath, gently turn it upside down into the pot. (It will look like an uneven blob in the bottom of the pot, but in cooking will straighten out.) Shake the pan to distribute the dough more evenly, if necessary. Cover, and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove lid and bake for an additional 15 – 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. (Time here will depend on your oven: we find we have to reduce the heat to 400 after removing the lid to prevent scorching, and cook for an additional 15 minutes.) Cool on a rack.
If your dough is too wet, it may stick to the towel when you turn it into the hot pot. This is recoverable: quickly scrape the dough that remains on the towel into the pot with the rest of the dough, cover and bake. The dough never sticks to the pot after baking.
You can add other ingredients (cheese, olives, caraway seed, nuts, raisins) after the first mixing, or fold them in before the second rising.
A word about flour:
We have used as much as 100 % whole wheat flour to make the bread, but it has better crumb when lightened with some white. 1/3 wheat to 2/3 white gives reliably good results. Rye is difficult to work with in this recipe. It makes the dough too sticky and is almost impossible to get to rise. I would recommend no more than 20% whole rye flour. Experiment.
