No Knead Crusty Boule Recipes

NO-KNEAD 5-MINUTE ARTISAN BREAD

Steps:

• Warm the 3 cups water just a little so that it feels just slightly warmer than body temperature. That should put it at about 100°F (40°C).
• In the large bowl of a standing mixer or a 6-quart container with a lid, mix the yeast, warm water, and salt. Don't worry about getting the yeast to dissolve.
• Add the flour to the yeast mixture all at once, then use a spoon or stand mixer to mix until the flour is completely incorporated and you have a blobby dough. (If you're hand-mixing the dough and it becomes too difficult to incorporate all the flour with the spoon, just use very wet hands to press the mixture together.) Don't knead the dough! It's not necessary. You just want the dough to be uniformly wet and loose enough to conform to the shape of its container. All you need to do is be certain that there are no dry patches of flour.
• Loosely cover the container and let the dough hang out at room temperature until it begins to rise and collapse or at least flatten a little on the top, about 2 hours. (Relax. It's bread dough, not a newborn. You don't need to monitor it constantly. And don't worry about the dough being precisely double or triple its original volume as you would with a traditional bread recipe. Just walk away, go about your business, and come back in 2 hours. Seriously.)
• After 2 hours, stash the container of dough in the fridge. That's it. (If your container isn't vented, you want to ensure the gases can escape by leaving the cover open a crack for the first couple days in the fridge; after that, you can seal it.)
• You can use the dough anytime after the initial 2-hour rise, although the refrigerated wet dough is less sticky and easier to work with than dough at room temperature, so it's best to refrigerate the dough overnight before handling it. Once refrigerated, the dough will seem to have shrunk back upon itself as though it will never rise again-that's normal. Whatever you do, do not punch down this dough. You're trying to retain as much gas in the dough as possible, and punching it down knocks gas out and results in denser loaves. Just be certain to use the dough at some point within 14 days.
• When you want to bake a loaf of artisan bread, dust a pizza peel or a baking sheet turned upside down with cornmeal or line it with parchment paper.
• Grab a hunk of the dough and use a serrated knife or scissors to cut off about a 1-pound piece of dough. Hold the dough in your hands and, if necessary, add just enough flour so the dough doesn't stick to your hands. (What you're trying to do is surround the surface of the dough with flour so that it can be handled. You're not trying to incorporate more flour into the dough, so for the love of all things good, resist the temptation to get rid of all the dough's inherent and lovely stickiness by working the flour into the dough.)
• Gently stretch the surface of the dough, tucking the ends underneath the ball and rotating it a quarter turn as you go. (See video above.) Most of the dusting flour will fall off, and that's okay, because as we just said, it's not intended to be incorporated into the dough. The bottom of the ball of dough may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out and adhere during resting and baking. The rest of your round loaf should be smooth and cohesive, and the entire shaping process should take no more than 20 to 40 seconds-don't work the dough any longer or your loaves may be dense.
• Place the ball of dough on the prepared pizza peel or baking sheet, seam side down with all the collected bunched ends on the peel or board. Let it rest for about 40 minutes. It doesn't need to be covered. (You may not see much rise during this period, but don't fret. It will rise much more during baking.)
• Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C) for at least 20 to 30 minutes. Preheat a baking stone (or an upside-down cast-iron skillet or baking sheet) on a middle rack for at least 20 to 30 minutes. Place an empty metal broiler tray on any rack that won't interfere with the rising bread. (Do not use a glass pan as it could shatter.)
• Dust the top of the raised loaf generously with flour and, using a serrated bread knife, slash a 1/2-inch-deep cross or a couple gashes or a tic-tac-toe pattern in the top. There's no need to dust the flour off the loaf.
• Place the far edge of the peel or the upside-down baking sheet in the oven on the baking stone or cast-iron skillet or upside-down baking sheet a few inches beyond where you want the bread to land. Give the peel or baking sheet a couple quick back-and-forth jiggles and then abruptly pull it out from under the loaf. The loaf should land on the baking stone with very little drama.
• Quickly but carefully pour about 1 cup hot water into the broiler tray and immediately shut the oven door to trap the steam. Bake the bread for a total of 20 to 35 minutes, until the crust is richly browned and firm to the touch. Because the dough is so wet, there's very little risk of it becoming dry despite how dark the crust may become. (If you're using a baking sheet rather than a baking stone, you may need a little extra time-up to 50 minutes total-for the bread to be done.)
• Remove the bread from the oven and let the loaf cool completely, preferably on a wire rack for the best flavor, texture, and slicing. (Crazily enough, a perfectly baked loaf will audibly crackle, or "sing," when initially exposed to room temperature.) The crust may initially soften but will firm when cooled.

NO-KNEAD BREAD

Steps:

• In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 1/2 cups/345 grams water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
• Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.
• Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
• At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is OK. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

SIMPLE CRUSTY BREAD

Steps:

• In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours).
• Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.
• Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.
• Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

NO-KNEAD CRUSTY BOULE

Steps:

• Whisk together flour, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Gradually stir in water until no dry bits of flour remain and mixture is well combined. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until very bubbly and consistency resembles pancake batter, 12 to 18 hours.
• Turn dough out onto a generously floured surface or floured parchment paper. (Dough will be very loose.) Incorporating as little flour into the dough as possible, shape into a taut ball by folding edges of dough in toward middle and repeating folding process until dough begins to develop structure and hold its shape, 2 to 3 minutes. Line a medium (9-inch diameter) bowl with a large piece of parchment paper that goes up sides bowl; flour parchment. Gently lift and place dough, seam side down, into prepared bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a draft-free warm place until doubled in size, 1 to 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 500°F. About 20 minutes before baking, place a cast-iron Dutch oven (5-quart or larger) with lid in oven to preheat.
• Once Dutch oven is fully preheated, remove from oven and carefully remove lid. Carefully lift dough using the parchment paper as handles and place dough into hot Dutch oven. Using shears or a very sharp knife, make one or multiple slits down the middle into the dough about ½-inch deep. Replace lid to cover pot and return to oven. Reduce oven temperature to 450°F. Bake, covered, until loaf has increased in volume and turned a light golden brown, 28 to 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue baking until a deep golden brown, 12 to 15 more minutes. Carefully transfer loaf, by lifting parchment paper and using as handles, to a wire rack. Remove parchment and let cool on wire rack, at least 1 hour before slicing.

NO KNEAD ARTISAN BREAD

Steps:

• Mix in the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
• Pour in 1 ⅓ cups (316 ml.) lukewarm water.
• Give it a mix using a wooden spoon. At this point, the dough needs to be quite sticky. If it is not, after you fully mixed it, add in more water in 1-tablespoon increments. Alternatively, you can use your clean hands to mix and feel the stickiness.
• Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let it sit in a warmer part of your house for 18-24 hours.
• Lightly flour your kitchen counter, gently remove the dough from the bowl, and place it onto your work surface. While removing, you will realize that it is quite sticky. However, if you take your time and gently pull it by folding it onto itself, you will see that it will come out easily without any dough remaining in the bowl.
• Form the dough into a ball tucking the sides of the dough under. Transfer the dough onto a large parchment paper, lightly dust with a little bit of flour, cover it with a clean kitchen towel, and let it rise for 1-2 hours or until it doubles in size. Again, I recommend letting it sit in a warmer part of your house.
• Towards the end of the rising time, place your dutch oven in the oven and pre-heat it to 450 F degrees (230 C Degrees).
• When ready to bake, take the now-very hot dutch oven out of the oven. Using the edges of the parchment paper carefully place the dough into the dutch oven. Put the lid on and let it bake for 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue to bake another 20-30 minutes or until the top is nicely golden brown as you see in the photos.
• At the end of the baking, remove it from the dutch oven, place it onto a cooling rack and let it cool for 30-45 minutes before slicing.

BREAD EVERYDAY! NO KNEAD BOULE

Steps:

• (I do this in my stand mixer) Combine water, salt, and yeast. Mix in flours. Don't over mix. It should be loose and just combined.
• Put in a non-airtight container. It needs to be covered, but the gasses need to be able to be released. Let rise about 2 hours, until it starts to collapse on its self.
• Refrigerate covered until ready to make bread. (At least 3 hours.).
• Preheat oven to 450 F with baking stone in center of oven. Place an empty broiler pan on another rack. (Preheat at least 40 minutes.).
• Prepare pizza peel with cornmeal (I don't have a pizza peel, I use a flat metal baking pan with no edges, and it works ok).
• Dust the dough with a bit of flour. Pull a hunk of dough from the refrigerator (1lb loaf is about the size of a grapefruit, if you make a single batch it will be 1/4 of the dough). Do not kneed. Gently tuck the rough edges underneath the ball. Place on the cornmeal. Let rise 20 minutes.
• Before you bake cut 2-3 slits in the top of the loaf. It helps it to rise during baking. Using a "flicking" motion with your wrist, shake the loaf onto the baking stone. (I almost always need to use a spatula to help it along) Carefully add 1 cup warm water to the broiler pan. Quickly trap the steam in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Until nicely brown on the outside. (Try not to peak).
• Let cool on a wire rack. Then cut.
• Store extra dough in fridge until you need it. The longer it stays in the fridge the more of a "sourdough" taste you get.

MINI NO-KNEAD BOULE BREAD

Steps:

• In a medium-sized bowl add all ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon until a shaggy blob of dough forms. Do not over mix. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough sit at room temperature for 12-24 hours. Dough will double in size and bubble up.
• 1 hour before you're ready to bake, pour dough onto a lightly floured worktop. With floured hands form dough into a ball by pulling edges toward the middle. Place dough ball seam-side down on a piece of parchment paper placed on a baking sheet.
• Dust top of dough with flour and cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with finger, about 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 450°F When dough is ready to bake make a 3" slash 1/2" deep across the top of the dough with a sharp knife or razor.
• Cover dough ball with an upside-down large, deep, oven-safe pot or aluminum roasting pan. Make sure pot edges are flush with the baking sheet so that no steam can escape. Place baking sheet in oven and bake for 25 minutes.
• After 25 minutes, uncover bread and reduce heat to 400°F Bake for 10 more minutes, until deeply golden brown and internal temperature measures 205-215°F.
• Immediately transfer bread to a wire rack and cool for 2 hours.

A SIMPLE BOULE

Steps:

• Combine the water, salt, and yeast in a mixing bowl or large tupperware. I like to put my container on top of a kitchen scale and tare it so I can easily add up the weights as I go.
• Add in the flour, and mix with a wooden spoon until the ingredients are evenly combined.
• If you're using a tupperware, set the lid on top, but don't seal it - you don't want the cover to be airtight. If you're using a bowl, loosely cover the top with plastic wrap.
• Let the dough sit for a minimum of two hours. Leaving it longer - even overnight - should be fine. At this point, you can either continue on to the next step, or refrigerate the dough and use it in the next two weeks. If you do refrigerate it, leave the top loose for a couple days before sealing it.
• When you're ready to bake, take out a piece of dough about the size of a grapefruit. You'll want to use some flour on your hands and the surface of the dough to keep it from sticking too much, but try to avoid incorporating the added flour into the dough. At this point, you want to keep as much gas in the bread as possible, so don't punch it down or knead it. Instead you want to form what Hertzberg and François call a 'gluten cloak.' Holding the dough in both hands, you want to stretch out the top of the ball and pull the bottom together. The top and sides should be smooth and cohesive. The bottom will seem a little messy - that's okay. It will flatten out and come together as the dough rests and bakes. If you're using a cast-iron Dutch oven, any lightly floured surface will do. If you're using a baking sheet, put the bread on it to rest - this way you can just move the whole tray to the oven when you're ready to bake. And if you're using a baking stone and have a pizza peel, make good use of it!
• Let the dough rest for about 40 minutes. About half-way through the rest, put the Dutch oven (or baking stone) in the oven and preheat to 450 (F). If you set the lid of the Dutch oven to the side or on the bottom rack you can allow it to preheat without having the extra step of to take it off before you can put in your dough. This might sound nitpicky, but the cast iron will be quite hot and heavy, so minimizing the number of steps is as much a matter of safety as convenience. Note that if you're using a baking tray, the thermal mass is negligible, so you won't gain anything by pre-heating with it in the oven.
• Just before you put the dough in the oven, dust the surface of the bread with flour. Using a bread-knife, make slashes about a half-inch into the top of the dough. Three parallel cuts will give a classic look, but you can experiment with other patterns. There might be some important technical reason for doing this, but as far as I'm concerned, its main purpose is to make your loaves look sexy. (Confession: I was really excited to play with my new proofing baskets, so the bread I used to illustrate this post look a little different than yours will.)
• Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the crust is a rich brown. If you're using a Dutch oven, take the top off about 20 minutes in. This lets moisture escape so that the crust can crisp.
• See how long you can let the bread cool before trying a slice. The bread continues to cook after you take it out of the oven, so cutting into it can harm the texture. In the book, Hertzberg and François suggest that letting it cool for about two hours is ideal.

EASY CRUSTY FRENCH BREAD

Steps:

• Combine yeast, sugar, and warm water in a large mixing bowl (you can also use a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook).
• Let the yeast proof for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is foamy.
• Add flour to bowl. Mix with a sturdy spatula until the dough starts to come together, then add salt and mix until all ingredients are incorporated. For best results, mix until no dry bits of flour remain. Note: This is a relatively slack (wet) dough, so it may seem a bit shaggy and sticky at this point. Don't worry - it will become more smooth and elastic as we go!
• Cover bowl with a clean tea towel and let rise on the counter for about 1 hour, until dough has doubled in size.
• When dough has risen, lightly flour a large cutting board.
• Tip the dough out of the bowl and onto the cutting board. DO NOT PUNCH THE DOUGH DOWN - you want to keep all those nice air bubbles intact so you have an airy, delicious loaf of bread. (Note: If the dough is sticking to the bowl a little bit, wet your hand with a bit of cold water and gently separate the dough from the bowl to get it all out).
• Shape the dough into a round loaf: Pull each corner of the dough in towards the center (like you're folding an envelope) and repeat until the dough feels tight and begins to resist your folds. Flip the dough over and pull it into a round loaf. Watch the video(s) above to see exactly how we do this!
• Flour a proofing basket or a medium bowl and place your loaf into it seam-side down. Cover with a tea towel and let rise another 30 minutes or so while you preheat the oven. Note: I like to line my proofing basket or mixing bowl with a clean linen napkin to distribute the flour more evenly and help with cleanup.
• While bread is rising, place an empty dutch oven (with the lid on) in your oven and heat to 460 degrees Fahrenheit.
• When the oven is hot, you're ready to go! Use oven mitts to pull the dutch oven out and remove the lid.
• Lay a piece of parchment paper down on your counter or cutting board (optional - it makes transferring the bread easier!)
• Tip your bread dough gently out of the proofing basket onto the parchment paper. Make sure the seam side is up this time - this is what will create those beautiful cracks on top of the bread!
• VERY CAREFULLY (without burning yourself!) use the sides of the parchment to lift the bread up and place it into the hot Dutch oven.
• Put your oven mitts back on, place the dutch oven lid back on the pot, and slide the whole thing back into your hot oven.
• Cook bread for 30 minutes.
• After 30 minutes, remove the lid from your dutch oven. The bread should be taller, crusty, and very lightly browned. Continue cooking the bread, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes more until the bread has deepened in color and you have a beautiful brown crust.
• When bread is done, use oven mitts to pull the pot out of your oven.
• Use a long spatula or the corners of your parchment paper to lift the bread out of the dutch oven and onto a cooling rack. Let cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting into it.
• Slice, slather with butter, and enjoy!