no-knead

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.

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 mins

Cook Time 45 minutes mins

Resting Time 11 hours hrs

Total Time 12 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

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