I am terrible at keeping up with New Year’s resolutions. I dutifully set them every year (exercise more, eat healthier, read more books / less of the Internet — the usual), but invariably fail because the New Year coincides with my hibernation period, and the last thing I want to do when it’s 6 degrees outside (actual temperature I woke up to on Thursday) is exercise.
So this year, I decided to take my #NewYearNewMe aspirations to a smaller, more manageable level. Each month, I’m setting mini goals for myself, because while eating healthier in 2019 seems a little daunting, eating one extra serving of fruits or vegetables per day in January does not.
Inspired by many, many episodes of The Great British Bake Off, one of my January mini goals was to bake bread. I decided to start with a tried-and-true classic, one of the first “viral” recipes of the Internet — literally everyone has made it. Except me. Until now.
For the uninitiated: back in 2006, Jim Lahey, of Sullivan Street Bakery fame (if you live in or ever find yourself in New York, GO HERE.) shared his recipe for a crusty, light-crumbed, delicious bread with Mark Bittman and the New York Times. It created a sensation due to its ease: the dough comes together in five minutes, and then the yeast does all the work for you. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt breaks down the science better than I ever could, but it really is magical how such little effort can yield such stunning results.
Since I was a total bread-making newbie, I wasn’t totally sure what I was doing, and my loaf definitely came out a bit more … bronzed than it should have. But the taste was incredible, and a week’s worth of toast for breakfast was a dream. This was definitely a promising first foray into the world of bread-making, and I envision many more no-knead loaves in my future.
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Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
- 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
- 1–1/2 teaspoons salt
Instructions
- Make the dough: In a large bowl combine the flour, yeast and salt. Add 1-1/2 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let the dough rest 15-18 hours at room temperature. The dough will be ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.
- Lightly flour a work surface and place the dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest about 15 minutes.
- Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Sprinkle flour over a large piece of parchment, then place the dough seam-side down on the parchment and dust with more flour. Cover with another piece of parchment and let rise for 2-1/2 hours. When it is ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not spring back when poked with a finger.
- At least 30 minutes before the dough is ready, heat the oven to 450F. Place a 4-quart heavy covered pot (I used enameled cast-iron, but you could also use Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven. Carefully flip the dough into the pot so that it’s seam-side up. (If it looks like a mess, that’s ok — shake the pan once or twice if the dough is unevenly distributed.)
- Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 15-30 minutes, until the loaf is browned nicely (… maybe check on yours once or twice, to avoid my mistake) and the loaf sounds hollow when you knock on it. Cool on a rack.
Notes
The only change I made from the original recipe was bumping down the water a bit (per Jim Lahey’s advice in a video he did with Mark Bittman), and increasing the salt a touch, since I’d read that the bread could use more seasoning. I also followed some of Mark’s tips — doing a longer second rise and using a smaller Dutch oven (mostly because I only have a 4-quart one). There are a million versions out there and plenty of advice, so go forth, you bread-making superstar you!
no “greasing” the pan before flipping the dough in?