Not Pretty Delicious

The bread that I mentioned is pictured here. I'm still using that no-knead technique but I left out a huge piece of the process as a test and it turned out just as delicious.

If you've made bread before, the last steps before baking are usually to shape the bread and then let it "proof" or rise to the desired size before baking. It's additional fermentation time and it makes sure you've got the biggest possible rise to the bread.

This is typically how I do it, but it involves a few steps. I pour the dough out of the bowl onto some flour, fold it, shape it, and put it on parchment to proof.

This time, I had my dutch oven heated in the oven and just poured the dough directly from the bowl into the dutch oven. I tried to pour it into as tall a pile as possible, put the cover on, and baked as usual. The result was the tallest loaf I've gotten so far, and nothing to clean other than the bowl: no flour, no parchment, just bread.

In fact, because the dough isn't in a tight ball, I don't even need to slash the top of the dough before baking, since the bread has more than enough room to grow without it.

It's not the prettiest loaf you'll ever get, but for delicious bread that now really requires about 3 minutes of actual work, I'm all for it.

In fact, I'll sum it up for you right here. I'm doing the timing here based on a normal workday:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups bread flour (want to get funky? use half bread flour and half whole wheat)
• 1.5 cups cold water (I use filtered or bottled)
• 1.5 tsp table salt
• 0.25 tsp instant (rapid-rise) yeast (the packet (or jar) stuff)

Hardware:

• Mixing spoon
• Mixing bowl
• Silicone spatula or something else non-sticky to scrape the dough out of the bowl
• Dutch oven, or some sort of heavy, covered vessel that can handle 450F - (note: if you have an enameled oven like a le creuset or lodge, you should remove the handle and fill the hole with aluminum foil. Most handles will only do 400F)
• Plastic wrap

Steps (Day 1 - do this before bed):

1. Mix flour, yeast, and salt thoroughly together with spoon.
2. Add water, and mix until the flour is incorporated - should be about 1 minute.
3. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in fridge overnight (8 hours should be fine).

Steps (Day 2)

1. In the morning, take it out of the fridge as early as possible, and put it somewhere that isn't too cold (I use a windowsill, but you can just put it on a table somewhere).
2. Go do something (like go to work) for the next 10-18 hours.
3. When you get home (or 10-18 hours have passed), put your empty dutch oven in the normal oven and heat to 450F. Once the oven is pre-heated, leave the dutch oven in there for 30 more minutes to thoroughly heat (note: if you're using an enameled dutch oven, oil it a little before it goes in the oven or the enamel might explode. yes, this happened to me).
4. Once the dutch oven is hot, pour the dough into it, trying to keep the dough in one tall lump (rather than spreading it out), cover, and put back in the oven.
5. Bake for 30 mins and remove cover. (note: the covering is vital. It gets moisture (go, steam!) all over the outside of the bread, which is what gives you the awesome crackly brown crust)
6. Bake 15-30 mins more, but definitely check at 15. The loaf should be deep golden brown when done, with at most a hint of black along the expansion lines of the bread.
7. Remove, and cool for at least an hour before eating. I'm serious. If you cut into the bread before it gets below 160F, the dough will look and taste undercooked.

That's it. Happy baking. If you try this, let me know how it comes out.