UPDATE: Having made this bread many many times now, there are a few things I have noticed. The original published recipe creates a dough that’s just a little too wet and salty for my liking. Instead, I measure by weight and use the following ratio:
Dylan’s Bread ratio:
15 oz bread flour
12 oz warm water
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp of active dry yeast
Try and have your dutch oven in the middle of your oven. If the oven rack is too low, the bottom will be a bit warmer than the 450 and will blacken a bit. I’ve done this a couple of times be accident and thought that we would have to cut off the bottom crust. Not so. It was still pretty darn good, though it didn’t look as pretty.
Lastly, I’ve tried sprucing this up a bit with flax meal, or whole wheat flour or whatnot. The problem is that this bread is so good in it’s basic form, that variations tend to diminish it. In general, for other flours, substitute between about 3 and 5 oz of flour for another type of grain meal and it should work out O.K.
Apparently the internet is all abuzz about this bread recipe, published in the New York Times food section. My father, constantly in search of food-based knowledge to impress me with, brought the recipe to my attention, and then tried to execute it while I was recently visiting him in New York. The results were not what he expected, but I’ll get to that later.
Firstly, as stated in the name of the recipe, there is no-kneading involved in the making of this bread. I know what you’re thinking. “Whaaaaaaa????” Yeah, me too. For those who have never made bread before, or have made it only once and gave up because it was a pain in the ass, this seems like a very attractive notion. For those who have made bread a fair bit, this seems a bit strange. How can impart the crumb with the appropriate texture, how can the bread achieve the structure it needs, without a bit of elbow grease, or at least the dough hook on a kitchenaid? The answer is has to do with the science of gluten and how crossbridges are formed and broken, and I will go into it more at a later date because it’s actually pretty interesting. For now though, I’ll just say this, the key is to make a fairly wet dough with very little yeast and then let it rest and rise for a very long time.
The second important thing to know about this recipe, is that it uses a dutch oven. Baker’s ovens are much better at trapping moisture than home ovens. Steam in the oven is part of what makes bread crusty. Also, contact heat from baking stones, or a really heavy pan can do the trick. The dutch oven, particularly if it’s enameled cast iron, can do both. The Dutch oven is preheated and therefore serves the same purpose the baking stone. The lid of the dutch oven traps the moisture that leaves the loaf as steam surrounding it, and gives the bread an incredible crust.
So, with that in mind, the recipe is as follows.
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 cups flour
1 5/8 cups warm water
Throw everything in a large bowl and stir it together to mix. It will form a wet dough. Mix it enough to make it more or less evenly textured, but don’t worry about it to much. It should look something like this:
Cover it and let it it rest for 18-24 hours. Yes, overnight. It will get little bubbles in it, and when you check it, may look a little fallen. Something like this:
Then, take it out of the bowl and put it on a lightly floured surface. Flour your hands and form it into a round loaf and rest between two floured sheets of wax paper (sprinkling some bran flakes on the loaf and helps prevet it from sticking to the paper). Let the round rest for about an hour and a half, then preheat the oven to 450 degree for about half an hour, with a dutch oven inside. Take the dutch over out, flip the dough into it, cover and put it back in the oven. After half an hour, take the top off to let the crust brown. After another 15 minutes, take the loaf out of the oven and let it cool for about 30 minutes before cutting.
It’s really good.
11 Comments
January 21, 2007 at 6:12 pm
[...] Dylan and I recently caught on to the whole Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread phenomenon. For those who may not know, the New York Times published a recipe for no-knead bread several months ago and it has become a tremendous success, with good reason. We’ve been baking our own bread for a while, but this recipe is SO much easier and better that it really is a revolution in bread-making. Check it out at The Wednesday Chef, even if you’ve never made a loaf of bread before. Or check out Dylan’s own post about it at Dylan’s Outlet. [...]
January 24, 2007 at 1:19 pm
This bread is better than yo momma! I’m ilya and I approve this message.
February 11, 2007 at 8:42 pm
[...] is customary, but it was quite tasty anyway, especially when served with a hunk of that delicious New York Times No-Knead bread . I just love that [...]
April 24, 2007 at 9:34 am
[...] and if you’re one of the few who still haven’t made Jim Lahey’s easy-as-can-be no-knead bread, now is the time to do it. A little bit crunchy, a little bit creamy and chewy, and a whole lot of [...]
April 26, 2007 at 6:28 pm
[...] eggs 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup grated mozzarella 1/2 medium onion 1/2 head of radicchoi 1 large slice of good crusty bread cut into 1 inch cubes a handful of grated [...]
June 21, 2007 at 2:39 pm
[...] so excited to try this panzanella that I actually made a loaf of the fabulous and shockingly easy no-knead bread (originally posted in the NYT) and let it sit out for a couple of days just for this [...]
July 3, 2007 at 7:35 am
[...] 3 Jul 2007 This is a recipe I’ve got to try Posted by Tony under Uncategorized No-knead bread? What an interesting idea. I’ll let you know how it turns out. [...]
July 5, 2007 at 7:27 am
[...] As you can see from the pictures, the crust has that wonderful crackly dimension to it and the crumb has large, wonderful airholes while still retaining a dense, chewy texture. The taste was just a little sour. This really was the best loaf of bread I have ever made in my life and hence, I was disappointed in myself. I can not make a better loaf of bread than one in which there is virtualy no work involved. All of my previous kneadings and restings and risings have been in vain. They’re pointless now-why work harder for an inferior product. Anyway, enough self-lamentation, here’s the recipe with a few hints: No-Knead Bread (from the blog Dylan’s Outlet) [...]
July 30, 2007 at 7:07 am
I tried this recipe and baked it in a heavy duty ceramic casserole at 500 degrees. The result was very good and the bread came out as described. This is the first time that I have achieved the large holes and the texture,which I have been trying to get for years of trying. Many thanks to Jim for this wonderful method. I shall use it again and again.
November 16, 2007 at 8:47 pm
I googled for an image of the NYT’s No Knead Bread and found yours here. Would you mind if I lift it? I will post a credit to your name with a link to your site.
Just can’t post without a photo. Yours are great, and I’m also going to lift that playlist—oy, romantic!
December 5, 2007 at 8:31 am
[...] Ingredients: 1 bunch kale, preferably Tuscan, but other varieties will work 1-2 tbsp truffle oil (or olive oil is fine, too) 1 clove garlic, minced 1 clove garlic, whole 2 tbsp freshly grated parmesan 1 cup water 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar 2-4 eggs (depending on how hungry you are) 1 tsp vinegar (for the eggs) sprinkle of paprika salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 slices bread, lightly toasted (preferably something delightful and homemade, like Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread recipe) [...]