bread

Yeast Bread

Overnight No Knead Bread | with commercial yeast

43 Comments / Bread & Co, Recipes /

This is a recipe for absolute beginners, and/or for people that don’t want to get into the trouble of making and then feeding a sourdough starter, and rather prefer using commercial yeast. It requires minimal effort, and no special equipment other than a cast iron pot with a lid, aka Dutch oven.

I developed this recipe because I noticed people are afraid of getting into the sourdough starter “business”. Although I rather recommend a sourdough bread, for its flavor and its long shelf life, I understand that not everybody has the time or interest to be taking care of a living being.

So for this recipe you will only need flour, dry yeast, salt and water. You will start the mixing of the dough in the evening before the baking day, stretch and fold the dough 2 times (no need for kneading), and leave it to proof overnight. Next day you shape it, let it rise in a basket and then bake it.

Flour

I chose all purpose flour for this recipe, because I suppose it is what any household has. If you want to use another one, like bread flour, you might need to add a little more water.

Anyways, in general, all flours need more or less flour than others, it depends how dry it is, where you store it, what type of wheat, etc. But you can start with this recipe and then experiment in the following trials with more water if you want it more moist, or less water if you think it was too hard to work with it because it would not want to stay in place.

But I must warn you, the more water you add, the more difficult it will be to shape it in the final phase. This recipe has a 65% hydration. That means, for every 100 g of flour, I added 65 g of water. I think it is an easy to work with hydration for a beginner, without the bread being too dry.

The recipe calls for 700 g of flour and 455 g of water. If for example you want to change the hydration to 70%, for the 700g of flour you will have to add 700g * 0,70 = 490g of water.

Yeast

I used active dry yeast, that you can mix it directly with your flour. If the instruction on the packages tell you to activate it in some water before, do that. The recipe calls for 1/4 tea spoon of yeast. I doubled it because I had around 16-17°C in my kitchen and I did not want to wait too long in the morning for the dough to rise. If you have an usual home temperature of 24°C, use the quantity from the recipe.

Water

If your tap water has a lot of chlorine, use filtered water. Here in Germany, in the area where I live, the water is really good, and does not smell or taste la chlorine, so I can use directly tap water for the bread. But too much chlorine can kill the yeast, so better use filtered water.

The temperature of the water should be room temperature. If you use colder, it will slow the fermentation, if you use warm (around 40 °C), it will ferment faster. Be aware that the taste wins a lot in case of longer fermentations. After the 2 stretch and fold that you will do, you can even pop the dough in the fridge and leave it for more time than just overnight. You will have to check though if you have to leave it more on the counter then, for it to rise to a doubled volume.

Salt

I used pink salt, but use whichever you have at hand. Be aware though, that table salt will make the dough saltier if you use the same amount. So you might have to use less. Salt is important not just for taste, but also for the texture of the dough, it makes it tighter and more elastic. But if you don’t want to use salt at all, it is also ok.

Baking

I recommend a Dutch oven for the baking of the bread. It creates something like a mini oven inside the oven, where the moisture of the bread is trapped inside because of the heavy lid and helps the bread have more oven spring, it rises more, before the crust gets settled. For the browning, later we just remove the lid and allow the crust to get to harden and acquire taste and crunchiness.

Professional ovens can inject steam while baking, but since we do not have such fancy ovens in our homes, we can use this solution of a Dutch oven. It is a very useful tool in the kitchen, I cook all the time in it, making soups, stews, frying things, and of course bread baking.

Ok, I hope I explained decently what is think is important for making this bread. If you do decide to make sourdough bread, take a look at my recipe here.

If you have any questions, write them in the comment section bellow and I will try to answer if I know.

Yeast Bread

Overnight No Knead Bread | with commercial yeast

This recipe is for anyone that is busy or a beginner in baking bread and does not want to take care of a sourdough starter. It uses all purpose flour and commercial yeast, so it can be done by anyone.
4.85 from 13 votes
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Resting Time 11 hours
Total Time 12 hours 15 minutes
Course Bread
Cuisine International
Servings 4

Equipment

  • Cast iron pot

Ingredients
  

  • 700 g all purpose flour
  • 455 g room temp water
  • 20 g salt
  • 1/4 tsp dry yeast

Instructions
 

  • In the evening before baking day (for me it was at 7 PM ), mix flour, salt and yeast.
  • Add the water and mix with your hands, a wooden spoon or a Danish dough whisk, until combined and no flour is left dry.
  • Cover and leave at room temperature for an hour.
  • After an hour do around 10 stretch and folds, picking up the dough from one side, stretching it and then bringing it onto its opposite side or the center of the dough. Turn the bowl around 90 degrees and continue the same procedure 8-10 times.
  • Cover and rest another hour, then do a second stretch and fold.
  • Cover and leave it for the night.
  • Next morning (7 AM for me), check the dough, it should have doubled in volume. If not, leave it some more.
  • When dough is ready, preheat the cast iron pot with its lid, in the oven, at 220 °C.
  • For the last fermentation you can use a proofing basket, or a bowl with a tea towel on top, or a strainer with the tea towel. Sprinkle flour generously on whichever you choose.
  • Sprinkle lightly some flour on the working bench.
  • With a dough scraper or a spatula, detach the dough from the sides and turn it onto the floured bench.
  • Fold a few times the dough, grabbing it from the exterior and bring it into the center. Pinch it in the center and then turn the dough 90 degrees and fold again. Do this 8 times, or until you can feel the dough is getting tight.
  • Then flip it with the seam side down, and with both of your hands, drag the ball from the far end towards you, tucking it underneath a little. This will create tension on the surface of the ball. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat the dragging and tucking, 4 times in total.
  • Place the dough, flipped with the seam side up, into the proofing recipient you chose.
  • Cover and leave to rest 45 min or until when poked with the finger, the dough comes back up slowly and leaves a slight dent into the surface.
  • Remove the pot from the oven with the help of some oven mittens.
  • Flip the dough onto a parchment paper, slice once in the center, from one side to the other, with a sharp knife or a razor blade. This first cut has to be quite deep, maybe 1 cm, so that the dough can have place to rise. You can make additional ornamental cuts on the sides if you like.
  • With the help of the parchment paper, transfer the dough into the cast iron pot, cover with the lid, and bake in the preheated oven for 30 min.
  • After 30 min, remove the lid and bake for 15 min more.
  • Remove the bread carefully and leave on a cooling rack until completely cooled.

Video

Keyword bread, easy, quick

Overnight No Knead Bread | with commercial yeast Read More »

Bread in the oven

Traditional bread from Transilvania

Leave a Comment / Blog /

I want to share with you some photos that I took a few years ago. This is how my grandmother used to make bread, and my aunts replicated it some years ago on a smaller scale. Now there were maybe just 10 smaller breads made, and not 20 big ones, as my grandma used to bake.

Back when I was a child, my grandmother, in the evening, prepared the dough in a big elongated wooden recipient. She would mix the flour from her own cultivated wheat with sourdough, brewer’s yeast, water and salt. And she would let it ferment overnight.

At 4 AM she would wake up to burn the brick oven with wood for some hours, until the oven interior would turn white from the ash. Then she would wipe it clean in preparation for the breads.

She would form up the bread loaves and lay them on a big wooden board close to the oven. It required skill and quickness. The dough was not proved in bannetons like in the modern days, so it was pretty slippery.

Bread forming

Then she would quickly transfer the dough into the hot oven with the help of a wood peel (like the ones used for pizza). That was really difficult. because the dough was sticky. She would bake the bread for some hours and then they will turn out like this.

Bread in the oven

Yes, it is burned, but don’t panic, this is how it is supposed to be. So all the loaves are taken out of the oven to get to the next step. They are still very very hot, and it is a skill to know how to scoop them out with the peel.

bread peel in action

The last step is the “beating” of the bread. It sounds strange, but we would all participate in this activity. You would get a thick stick, and start smacking the bread, so that the burnt crust would removed from the bread. We would do it where the chicken did their roaming, and they would go crazy eating these bread rests.

Removal of burnt skin

In the picture above, you can see this bread has a “malformation”, some dough escaped from it’s roundness and started forming its own bread crust. As kids we would love these things and we would fight for them. We all had a desire of eating just the skin of the bread. If only the bread was made only of these “malformations”…

The magic of this bread, is that is used to hold for two weeks, until another batch of bread was prepared. And people used to get inventive the last days of a batch, because it got a little harder. So you would use it to dip into a soup, or toast it and scrub garlic on it. And then some lard and salt on top, and it was the most delicious breakfast. And if it was summer and the tomatoes were ripe, you would add some tomatoes to the bread magic and you were good to go.

After the bread was baked, the oven would still be warm, and other specialties were baked afterwards. But that will come in another recipe and I am looking forward to be sharing it with you.

Traditional bread from Transilvania Read More »

Sourdough bread with yogurt

No Knead Sourdough Bread With Yogurt | Easy Bread Recipe

4 Comments / Bread & Co, Recipes /

The magic world of sourdough is extensive, you can make so many variations of ingredients and tastes. You can also vary the type of yeast that will make your dough rise, by changing the type of flour, or changing your location, country, continent.

You will not have a consistent result compared to the commercial yeast, but you will gain in complexity of flavor and texture, and in excitement to see how your bread will surprise you. You will watch through the oven door like a child excited to see the wonders of baking.

You will then suffer because it smells so good and you know you have to let the bread cool off before cutting it. And sometimes you will cave in, because you see and feel and smell the crust and you imagine how wonderfully chewy it will be, and what a perfect carrier it will be for the salted butter you will spread on top.

Old times

For me the smell of bread gets me to childhood era. My grandmother used to bake bread in her village, in her wood fired stone oven. She would prepare the dough the night before and she would wake at 4 AM to start the process. By 9 when we, the kids, would wake up, the bread was taken out of the oven. So there was everywhere the smell of bread that would just make you happy.

I remember she was also using sourdough, and additionally brewer’s yeast. And before forming the bread she would save some dough in a jar, for the next batch of bread, in two weeks. She would bake around 20 huge bread loaves, to last for 2 weeks for the big family. And the magic of sourdough bread is that it lasts a long time. Yes, it will not be fresh in the end, but you can toast it, or eat it with soup.

Modern times

The good news is, one does not need a wood fired oven now. I have excellent result with a mediocre oven and with a good Dutch oven that will simulate baking with a professional steam oven for a good oven spring. I dare say, my bread is even better than my grandmother used to bake. It is fluffier and more complex in flavor. And I can experiment with lots of additions inside it.

This recipe adds yogurt, but I also baked breads with potatoes, the liquid of lacto-fermented pickles, buttermilk, quark and other experiments. And they turned out great and unique in their way.

Sourdough bread with yogurt

No Knead Sourdough Bread With Yogurt | Easy Bread Recipe

Easy no knead sourdough bread that will make you reconsider buying bread ever again.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Resting Time 14 minutes

Equipment

  • Dutch oven or cast iron pot

Ingredients
  

Levain:

  • 30 g active sourdough starter
  • 100 g room temperature filtered water
  • 100 g all purpose flour

Dough:

  • levain made the night before
  • 700 g all purpose flour
  • 80 g natural yogurt
  • 16 g salt
  • 390 g water filtered, warm(not hot)

Instructions
 

  • The night before baking, feed the starter with the water and flour to make the levain.
  • Leave covered at room temperature, at least 18°C.
  • Next morning, in a bowl, add the flour, the levain made the night before, the yogurt and the salt.
  • Add warm water (~36°C), not all at once. You might need more or less water than the one in the recipe. The dough has to just barely come together, but no flour left dry. You can mix it with a wooden spoon or your hands.
  • Cover and leave in a warm place.
  • It will need at least 2 stretch and folds: after 1/2h and after 2h 30min. I did 3, with an additional one after an hour.
  • Fold by grabbing the dough from the outside, stretch the dough a little and then fold it on top. Turn the bowl 90° and continue folding about 8 times in total.
  • The total rising time will vary based on your room temperature. mine took 4h30min at 18°C. In summer it rises faster. It should have risen at least 50%, but not doubled.
  • Prepare a parchment paper that will fit inside your Dutch oven(cast iron pot), and heat the pot with the lid on, without the paper inside, in the oven at 220°C. I use 250° because my oven is very weak. My Dutch oven has a diameter of 28 cm, 26cm would also be fine.
  • Meanwhile dust with flour a banneton, or a bowl with a kitchen towel inside.
  • Flour the work surface and turn the dough on it.
  • Fold from the exterior to the center and press a little in the center. Do this 8 times turning 90°.
  • Then pick up gently the ball of dough and put it seam side up into the banneton.
  • Cover with a kitchen towel and leave to rise 45 min.
  • Check if the dough is ready by pocking with a finger. If the dimple rises slowly, it is done.
  • Get the Dutch oven out.
  • Turn your dough, seam side down, onto the paper that lies on top of a big cutting board.
  • Score the bread with a razor or sharp knife (e.g. a cross, or square) with quick and decisive movements. The slits will allow the bread to rise without breaking the crust.
  • Take the lid off from the pot with the help of oven mittens.
  • Transfer the parchment paper with the dough inside the pot, cover and return to oven for 30 min.
  • After 30 min remove the lid and continue to bake for 15 min.
  • Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.
  • Let the bread cool completely, it is still cooking while it rests.

Video

Keyword bread, sourdough

No Knead Sourdough Bread With Yogurt | Easy Bread Recipe Read More »

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