Have you always wanted to bake a loaf of bread, but you put it off because you thought it was just too darn complicated?
You’re not the only one.
But we’re here to tell you; it doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, you can bake delicious bread with only four ingredients, a couple of everyday kitchen items, and an Uno Casa Dutch oven or a similar piece of cookware.
We’ll walk you through this simple recipe, step-by-step so in no time you’ll be knocking up crusty loaves of bread that don’t require kneading or proofing. This recipe is so easy that you’ll spend more time waiting around than you will baking.
Let’s get started.
What You’ll Need:
A Large Mixing Bowl
Spatula
Plastic wrap
Parchment Paper
Clean Dishtowel
Scraper
6-quart Dutch oven
3 cups of Bread Flour, All Purpose Flour or Whole Wheat Flour
1 Quarter Teaspoon of Yeast
1 Teaspoon of Salt
1 ½ Cups of Hot Water
Directions:
Step 1 – Dry Ingredients: Take your mixing bowl and add the 3 cups of flour (regular, whole wheat, or bread flour, whichever you prefer), a quarter teaspoon of yeast, and one teaspoon of salt. And with your spatula, mix these dry ingredients together.
Step 2 – Let’s Get Sticky: With your flour, yeast, and salt mixed, add one and a half cups of very hot (but not boiling) water. Unlike with regular bread, the water needs to be hot rather than cold to speed up the process. Mix the water and dry ingredients together until you’ve got a big sticky ball of shaggy dough.
Step 3 – Cover & Wait: Leaving your dough ball in the mixing bowl, take a sheet of plastic wrap and place it over the top, sealing the bowl tight. Leave your covered bowl sitting on the countertop for three hours.
Step 4 – Watch TV: Put your favorite Netflix show on and put your feet up. Around three episodes should suffice.
Step 5 – Fold the Dough: By now, your shaggy dough should have dramatically increased in size, be puffy on the top with visible air bubbles, and a little wobbly if you give the bowl a shake.
Using your spatula, carefully pry the dough ball from the bowl and onto a well-floured surface (approximately three tablespoons worth should suffice) and cover the top of the dough with a few extra pinches of flour.
Use the scraper to fold the dough in on itself for a minute to help work the flour into a cohesive ball. This process will make the no knead bread dough much easier to work with.
Step 6 – Back into the Bowl: Take a large piece of parchment paper and place it over the top of the mixing bowl (or a slightly smaller bowl if you have one), and drop your bread dough into the bowl, allowing it to sit on top of the paper. Cover the bowl with your clean dishtowel.
Leave it to sit on the countertop while you heat the oven (with your Dutch oven inside) to 450 degrees, which should take approximately half an hour.
Step 7 – It’s Time to Bake Some Bread: Take your Dutch oven out of the cooker (wearing oven mitts, of course) and remove the lid. Lift the bread dough from the bowl using the parchment paper and gently lay it into the Dutch oven (parchment paper and all). With the lid replaced but it in the oven, and bake it for thirty minutes.
Step 8 – Enjoy the Aroma: Stand in your kitchen, taking deep whiffs as that delicious bread smell fills your house.
Step 9 – Almost There: Take the bread from the oven, remove the cookware lid and the parchment paper, and put the base of the Dutch oven back in the cooker (without the lid) for ten to thirty minutes, depending on how crispy you like your bread.
Step 10 – Marvel at your Bread-Making Skills: Once the no knead bread is as golden brown as you like it, place the bread on a rack and leave it to cool (but not too much as nothing beats warm bread).
Step 11 – Eat It: Enjoy.
There’s No Stopping You Now
Now you’ve nailed the basics of no-knead bread, experiment with different ingredients to bring this recipe to life, and make it your own.
Baking and cooking should be fun, not frustrating. Simple recipes like this one are perfect for people with limited baking experience to improve their abilities in the kitchen and encourage them to create different foods using only a few ingredients and standard equipment.
