Super Easy, No-Knead Bread

I have made this super easy, no-knead bread a few times now.  I took the recipe from the website Frugal Living NW and love it for a few reasons.  First, there are only 5 ingredients (if you count water as an "ingredient").   Second, you mix it by hand in one bowl which reduces the amount of dishwashing you have to do afterwards.  Third, it has a 12-18 hour rise time (with 14 hours as the optimal time), so you can prep it before bed one evening and have it ready for dinner the next.  Fourth, it is baked in a dutch oven which is so cool.  Finally, it is delicious!  I do cut this recipe in half because there are only two people in my household and I have yet to master the art of freezing dough after its first rise.

~ 2 cups unbleached flour
~ 1 cup of white whole wheat flour
~ 1 1/3 cups warm water (You should be able to leave your finger in there for about ten seconds without saying "ouch".  Not cold, but definitely not hot...  The yeast will boycott it if you don't meet its temperature demands.)
a pinch or two of sugar (maybe 1/4 teaspoon)
~ 1/4 t. of yeast (I purchased this yeast from King Arthur Flour.com and put it in a sealed jar in my refrigerator.  It is definitely cheaper than the envelopes you can get at the store, if you plan on baking bread on a regular basis.)
~ 1 1/4 tsp. of salt

I first proof the yeast by dissolving the sugar in the water and then whisking in the yeast.  I wait about 5 minutes until it gets scummy and frothy like this:

If this doesn't happen, pour it out and start again.  (Yours might be even more active than this which is great too!)  Your water could have been too warm/too cold, you might need to add more sugar for the yeast to eat, or the location of the bowl might have been too cold/hot.  On this particular day, I restarted my yeast mixture two times before getting it right on the third try.  Today is our first really cold and rainy day of the season and I think it was too cold the first two times.  On the third try, I popped it on my stove which was a bit warmer because I had preheated my oven to help along another dough that was already rising.

While the yeast is doing its thing, I mix the flours with the salt and add them to the yeast mixture when it is ready.

The dough can be mixed with a wooden spoon just until all the flour is incorporated.  There shouldn't be any dry spots and it will be very tacky.

Pop some plastic wrap and a clean dish towel on there and leave it in a relatively warm place for 12-18 hours.

At the end of that time, it will be puffed up with lots of little holes caused by the yeast letting off gases while it eats the sugar.  One of the gas byproducts is carbon dioxide which stays in the dough because of the strong gluten that has "cloaked" the outside of the dough.  This keeps your bread light and chuck full of those nice holes that make for great toast!  At the end of this first rise, it will look something like this:

You then extract the dough from the bowl and plop it on a floured surface.  It will want to stick to the bowl so just scrape it out with your hands.  Fold it over itself a few times and then put it on a clean dish towel that has been prepped with some cornmeal and flour.  Fold the dish towel over the top and let it rest for about 2 hours.

After about an 1 hour and 1/2, preheat your oven to 450 degrees with your dutch oven in it.  (Be sure to coat the inside of the dutch oven with a little cooking spray.)  When your oven beeps to let you know it is preheated, leave the dutch oven in there for another 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, carefully take it out (it's going to be hot) and take off the lid.  Lift up the towel and "flop" the dough into the dutch oven.  Be careful of flour puffing up in your face.  Slash the top of the dough a few times.

Put the top back on and put the dutch oven back in your oven.  It should bake for about 45 minutes.  After 45 minutes, carefully take the top off and bake for another 10 minutes until deep golden brown like this:

Resist cutting it until it is fully cooled!  (During this time, you will hear it "crackling" if you put your ear up close.)  A premature cut will result in a gummy interior = not yummy.


Enjoy!