Friday, February 27, 2015

No Knead Crusty Bread

I'm sitting here on the couch wishing I had a laptop, waiting for my cast iron saucepan I scored at DI or a yard sale a while back to finishing seasoning and remembered I promised I'd blog about my bread. If you want the recipe scroll now, if you enjoy my rambling keep reading.

Forever ago my Internet friends were all making no knead bread. I had zero free time and didn't realize that was all I needed {kneaded?} I ignore the thread and pushed the thoughts of homemade bread out of my mind. Occasionally I'd make some in the bread maker or pick up some Rhodes dough so it smelled like I'd made bread. Very occasionally, almost beyond rarely. 

Then came my great master plan of having a few friends up to the cabin for dinner, which has to include Dutch oven potatoes {right?} so as I'm wondering if I can live up to Russell's potatoes and start browsing Pinterest for recipes I discover a pin for Dutch Oven crusty bread and then realize its no knead bread and my research shows most no knead breads are almost exactly the same. Flour, water, salt, yeast and sitting overnight in something covered then baked in a covered Dutch oven that has been preheated in a 450* oven for 30 minutes then 10 to 15 minutes without the lid. You can embellish, bedazzle, and sparkle it up but the result is a crusty bread that is perfectly soft and chewy on the inside. Mmmm.  Heaven.

So I mix all the goods up and put them in Mom's old Corning ware bowl with some plastic wrap and let it sit overnight and through a good chunk of today. After I dumped it out I realized I should be documenting this, good bad or ugly so I take a picture of my dough ball resting while the Dutch oven is heating up.


And there it sat for 30 minutes until it was  gently placed into the HOT Dutch oven. 


Now, this is where life and a low volume timer come into play. I missed the timer going off and when I realized my bread looked like this with a hollow thump sound so I pulled it out then. I don't know how much better it would have been but I've been craving soft cheese, fondue, and potato soup to go with this. 


Doesn't it look heavenly?  It tasted great too.




Super Easy Crazy Yummy Crusty Bread


3 Cups bread flour {or whatever flour was in my flour jar}
1 1/2 Cups water {not hot, you don't want to kill the yeast}
1 teaspoon yeast {different recipes talked about different kinds of yeast in different amounts etc. I have a Tupperware jar marked "yeast" in my freezer and that's what I used}
1 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients together then add water and stir until combined well. Place in at least a 4 quart bowl with lid or cover with plastic wrap. Let sit at room temperature somewhere between 12-24 hours. 

When ready to bake heat oven to 450 and preheat Dutch oven and lid for 30 minutes. While Dutch oven is heating scrape dough onto well floured surface and form into a ball.  You don't need to work the dough, just form it into a nice ball. Let rest while Dutch oven finishes heating. Gently place dough ball into Dutch oven {really you should be careful that sucker is HOT}

Bake with lid in place 45 minutes. Remove from Dutch oven and allow to cool before cutting. 

Enjoy!

{Heather} 




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