NYTimes Style No Knead Bread - in Excessive Detail

I make this bread almost every week. It is the family’s favorite and it is objectively very good. It is also very easy. (if you have the time for it.)

You need:

• a large dutch oven - mine is a 6qt enameled one. It should have an oven-safe lid.
• a large mixing bowl that can be tightly covered

Ingredients:

• 3 c bread flour
• 1/4 tsp yeast
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 5/8 c water (eyeball it between the 1/2 and 3/4 marks on your measuring cup)

The night before:

in a large bowl that can be tightly covered, mix all ingredients together. I recommend using a large silicon spatula. They will come together into a ragged mass. cover, and ignore for 12-18 hours ish.

The day of:

3 hours before you want fresh bread:

Uncover your boowl of dough. It will have expanded to be a nearly liquidy goop with lots of air bubbles in it. Using plenty of flour, convince the top and edges that they are dryish, and fold the dough a few times. Everytime it’s too sticky, just add more flour to your hands. You should notice lots of air bubbles in the dough, and it should start feeling more like a bread dough, but still a very sticky one. Shape the dough into a nice little round, and then put it back in the bowl and re-cover it.

Set a 90 minute timer.

When the 90 minutes are up, set your oven to 450 degrees, and place the main dish (but not the lid) of a large dutch oven in the actual oven. v Set a 30 minute timer.

When the 30 minutes are up, shape the dough - it will have expanded to be bowl shaped again, but because of the folding you did already, it’s a little less sticky and a little easier to convince that it should be loaf of bread shaped. Again, you will flour your hands a lot, and kind of pick up and fold the dough a few times, then shape it into a nice a round. Ideally you have used enough flour that your hands are not too covered in dough at this point - because it’s time to put on oven mitts, pull the hot dutch oven out, drop the ball of dough in, put the lid on, and then put it back in the oven.

Set another 30 minute timer.

When this 30 minutes is up, remove the lid from the dutch oven. It will be VERY HOT. Find somewhere safe to put it.

Set a 15 minute timer.

When the timer goes off, your bread is done! Turn off the oven, pull the (extremely hot) dutch oven out of the oven, and put it somewhere it can safely cool.

If you want to eat the bread right away, carefully remove the hot boule from the dutch oven and let it cool for at least 5 or 10 minutes. If you’re careful (the bread is still very hot, and will release steam) you can hold it in a towel or oven mitt with one hand when you cut into it.

I prefer to wait a little longer, til the bread is safe to touch. It is fabulous anytime in the next several hours after baking.

What if I don’t have 3 contiguous hours at home before I want bread?:

I have had success with folding the dough and then covering and popping it into the fridge for 4ish hours. Take it out of the fridge when you’re ready, and pick up the directions at the point where you preheat the dutch oven in the oven for 30 minutes. (That also gives your cold dough 30 minutes to warm up before you shape it.)

yes, you still need an hour and 15 minutes of the oven being on. It’s worth it.