I have a busy schedule. I would never have thought that I would be capable of baking an artisanal style crusty bread with minimal effort, and minimal ingredients, in the middle of the week, but that’s exactly what I just did (I actually made two), and you can too. On Monday night I decided I’d make some bread, and on Tuesday night I had two beautiful loaves, which required about 15 minutes of actual work. I originally learned this recipe from Jim Lahey & Mark Bittman from an article they wrote in the NY Times, view the original article here. Below is a timeline of what I did, please try for yourself, I guarantee you’ll be satisfied with the result.
This is what you’ll need:
- Cast iron pot with a lid
- Large mixing bowl
- Kitchen towel (not terrycloth)
- Bread flour
- Salt
- Instant yeast
- Yellow cornmeal (optional)
Monday
8:00 pm: Decided I would make a couple of loaves of no-knead bread.
8:02 pm:Realized I didn’t have any yeast.
8:10 pm: Went to Keyfood and bought a 3-pack of Red Star, quick rising, active yeast.
8:15 pm: Went to office holiday party and had some healthy ping pong competition with bosses and coworkers.
11:35 pm: Returned home ready to start my bread
- Mixed 1 and 1/4 tsp salt, (kosher or fine sea salt), 1/4 tsp instant yeast, and 3 cups of King Arthur bread flour (following careful flour measuring practices) in a large mixing bowl.
- Added 1 and 1/2 cups of room temp water and mixed the dough with my hand for just a few seconds, just until the flour was practically all mixed in.
- Covered with plastic wrap and put it in a quiet, slightly warm corner of my kitchen
11:40 pm: Got ready for bed, and did nothing with my bread for 20 hours.
Tuesday
7:40 pm: Poured the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and quickly shaped it into a round (boule), by cupping the dough and turning it while pulling it tight. Placed the round onto a kitchen towel that had a light dusting of yellow cornmeal, dusted the top of the round with more yellow cornmeal, and covered the round with a folded kitchen towel.
8:40 pm: Put a cast iron pot with a lid on into the center of the oven and preheated the oven to 450.
9:30 pm: Pulled the pot out of the oven, opened the lid, and dusted a bit more corn meal into the pot, then, I carefully slid my hands under the kitchen towel to lift up the dough round and flip it into the hot pot. I then gave the pot a little shake to even out the dough and let it settle, and then I covered it up and put it back in the oven.
10:00 pm: Uncovered the pot and looked at the beautiful bread developing before me.
10:15 pm: The crust was a nice golden brown but I felt it could use 5 more minutes.
10:20 pm: Carefully removed the pot from the oven and took the bread out of the pot and onto a cooling rack using tongs and a spatula.
10:21 pm: Declared the task oficially accomplished and started looking forward to tomorrow’s toast.
For more pictures and more detailed instructions, read this post.
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6 Comments
I’m curious – how much did all of the ingredients cost?
Great question Peter, here’s the breakdown:
3 cups of King Arthur bread flour = $0.61 (@ $3.60/ 5 lbs)
1/4 tsp yeast = $0.17 (@ $1.99/ 3 pack)
1 and 1/4 tsp sea salt = $0.04 (@ $2.99/ 750 grams)
about 1/2 cup of organic yellow cornmeal = $0.14 (@ $2.29/ 32 ounces)
Total cost = roughly $0.97
Bread like this would be at least $3.00 at the store, and wouldn’t be anywhere near as delicious or as satisfying as what you would make at home. In these economic times, home baked bread just makes sense!
a friend of mine is vegan. i was at her house and she was making soup. and said ‘bring a beer and make the beer bread’… and i figure ‘hey, if something includes beer, im much more likely to do it’..
ingredients: 3 cups self rising flour (ha!) 3 tbsp. sugar. and a beer. mix and bake at 350. in an oiled pan.
we used an iron skillet in the oven… and made the ‘self rising flour’ with 3 cups flour 1 1/2 tsp salt. 3 tsp baking powder and 3 tbsp sugar.
i cant say it came out great. but seems like a fun and easy thing to play with (ie: mixing it part with ww flour etc.. i didnt love the texture but thought if you were the bread king you could fix it.
Wow, I haven’t made bread with beer before but its a great idea as they’re two of my favorite fermented products. Using baking powder and self rising flour is not something that I have experience with either, but if the bread was too dense, maybe there wasn’t enough baking powder, or maybe it wasn’t fresh and lost its rising power. Foodie Farmgirl has this great post about all different flavors of beer bread. She uses a recipe that sounds similar to the one you tried, except she uses all purpose flour. The flavor combinations sound really great, and I like her idea of mixing the ingredients and giving it as a gift with a bottle of beer presented in a loaf pan. I’m gonna have to try these.
This looks so yummy & delicious. So satisfying to make your own bread (I used to do it a lot, when I lived on a farm and made bread for the whole group of us almost daily!). There’s nothing like the smell of baking bread. I think you’ve inspired me to get back into it! Thanks!
Making homemade bread really is the best. It is so satisfying, there are limitless possibilities, and yes, there is nothing like filling up your home with the smell of fresh baked bread.
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