No Knead Bread

No knead bread has been around forever, probably before anyone thought of kneading the dough. Flour, water, salt and yeast are hand stirred together and left alone for anywhere from 2 hr.s to 24 hr.s. The dough is then dumped into a pan or a sheet and left a little more, and then it's baked. Yes, it's that simple.

My first exposure to no knead bread was through the book No Need to Knead, by Suzanne Dunaway. She runs her own bakery in L A and wrote the book explaining the simple no knead process by which she makes incredible breads. I'd actually made no knead bread before just because I was too lazy to knead it again and just plopped it in the oven. It came out suprisingly well so I thought this book sounded like something I'd want to get the hang of.

Jim Lahey, of the Sullivan Street bakery in NYC, has been featured in the NY Times and he's popularized his own no knead style. He uses heavy cast iron pots to bake the bread and he lets the dough rise for a long time-anywhere from 12-24 hrs. His breads are legendary. Suzanne Dunaway ferments the dough for a shorter period, but not always, and she doesn't use the pot method. Nevertheless, both methods will bring about delicious breads with perfect crusts.

If you look at the dough after it's fermented awhile, it actually looks a lot like bread, it's more of a sponge than a dough. Jim Lahey uses only 1/4 tsp of yeast, that's all you need for a long fermentation. The result of this long fermentation is that the gluten is ready, the enzymes have done their job, and the dough is alive and kicking. All of this allows for an incredibly rich and well crusted rustic bread.

So now there's no excuse not to bake wonderful home made bread. This is as easy as using a bread machine but the results are far superior-no comparison. Read the book, check out Jim Lahey's vidoes, and you'll be on your way to superior, healthy, robust homemade bread.