No Knead Bread

  I'm not sure why a "no knead" bread piqued my interest since I truly enjoy kneading a traditional bread dough. But I suppose I wanted to see if it was actually any good and whether it was a time-saver.

 I used this  recipe at LoveBakesGoodCakes. It's similar to others on the web but it was their recipe that attracted me on a Facebook post. The comments all seemed positive.

I learned a good bit yesterday and I'll share it here. But I can already say the end result was delicious!

 This was Tom and my breakfast this morning: scrambled eggs whipped in a blender with a little Half & Half added. Tom always buys locally produced brown eggs and thinks the taste is superior. I know the bread was. And ever Parker, our miniature schnauzer, was standing on her hind legs asking for another taste.

 The recipe couldn't be more simple with just four ingredients: flour, salt, yeast and water. I used bread flour and traditional yeast (not the rapid rise type). I slightly warmed the water in our microwave so the yeast would quickly blossom.

 This produces a wet, sticky dough. I'll admit I added a bit more yeast than called for (a rounded half teaspoon with some extra yeast which was in my freezer bowl). Did I use a full teaspoon? I don't think so but it might have been close. And  I "proofed" the yeast in the water to which I added a teaspoon of sugar. 

 The instructions call for a 12-18 hour rise time. After just 5 hours my dough had risen so much (more than doubling) that I thought I ought to get it baked.

 I turned the dough out onto a floured baking cloth, added a dusting to the dough it so it could be better handled  and formed it into a ball. I placed it on parchment paper and in a 9" metal cake pan (1.5" deep).

 And while I heated the oven to a very hot 450°,  I let the dough rise about 45 minutes. It changed considerably from what is shown above. I dusted the top with  some flour.

 And  I didn't use a Dutch Oven as called for in the recipe because I don't have one. I placed a pan of water on the lowest shelf in the over and placed the bread on the rack above it. I baked it for the full 45 minutes.

 The end result was a beautifully-browned free-form loaf of bread. Below is a side view after it cooled a bit and was lifted out of the parchment paper.

 This recipe produces a bakery-style bread whose crust is a bit "tough" but it was exactly what I was hoping for. The taste is wonderful. It certainly took longer to make than my kneaded breads but the majority of the time is while it's rising and it's hands-off for the baker. It can be thrown together quickly and you can move on to other projects while the yeast does its thing.

 This is a recipe to keep. It'd be great with the addition of various herbs and I'd love it with sunflower seeds. So the experimentation will continue.