The best cookbook I’ve never read, on bread.

I like to eat good bread. (Do you mind if I place-drop for a minute? Thanks.) I have lived in Greece, and traveled all over Western Europe, and I have become very spoiled with the eating of good bread. One look at my generous bottom will confirm this for you. And I have to say, that pre-sliced, plastic-wrapped crap at American grocery stores is entirely unacceptable.

The problem: good bread costs $4-$5 per loaf here in the good ol’ US of A. That, my friends, is also unacceptable.

Enter the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. The concept is similar to the method made popular by Mark Bittman in the New York Times. Basically, you let the dough rise slowly in the frig, and you don’t knead it.

I follow the Artisan Bread method, keeping a large bucket of dough in the frig. I bake bread as needed, in a cast iron skillet or on a cookie sheet, in my decidedly low-end oven. And the bread I am turning out is spectacular, if I do say so myself.

Don’t want to buy the book? I confess: I didn’t. I found the link to the article & recipe on Mother Earth News. This article was written by the cookbook authors, so I didn’t feel bad about copyright or anything. The article is NINE PAGES long, but I’ve read the whole thing, along with many other blogs on this kind of bread, so I’ve summarized them and put some tips for baking below. I am not a food blogger, so my photography is a bit haphazard, but you should get the idea.

For this recipe you will need a dough rising bucket with a lid.

Mine is a plastic rubbermaid-type container from Big Lots. Or you could get all fancy with this one: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/dough-rising-bucket
Your dough-rising bucket should hold 6 or 7 qts.

You might also want a wooden spoon with a very short handle. One with a long handle will break, because the dough is quite stiff. I got mine from the dollar store but if it’s in the dishwasher I just use my hands.

The instructions look long but I just wanted to explain thoroughly. It’s quite easy once you get the hang of it.

Here we go!
No Knead Bread
From the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

6 cups water
3 TB yeast
3 TB salt
13 cups flour
cornmeal for dusting the pan

Put the water in the bucket first.

Then put the yeast and salt in and give it a stir.

Last, put the flour in.

The flour is measured using the scoop and sweep method: scoop from your flour bucket and then level off the top with a knife. Do NOT spoon the flour into the measuring cup. Do NOT use a 2-cup measure. I count the cups out loud so I don’t lose track. :)

Once the flour is in, stir it with your hand or a short-handled spoon.

The dough will be stiff, shaggy, and kind of wet. It will not be smooth, and you may have some lumps or dry spots. That’s OK! It will not look like bread dough normally does.

Now, put it in the frig for at least three hours (or overnight). If you are in a hurry, you can leave it on the counter for a couple of hours. Put the lid on loosely. It will rise quite a bit in the frig.

To bake: Sprinkle some cornmeal in a clean kitchen towel. Wash your hands & leave them wet so the dough won’t stick. Pull off a hunk the size of a small cantaloupe. To shape the loaf, pull the “skin” over the top and around to the bottom so that the top is smooth and only the bottom is bunchy.

Place the dough in the cornmeal towel and let rise about 45 minutes.

Place a cookie sheet or baking stone in the oven and preheat it to 450. (you may want to do this in the morning or evening; it kills my A/C to do it in the afternoon!) Plop the dough, cornmeal & all, onto the hot pan. Bake for 45 minutes.
Skillet method: I have a big cast iron skillet with a lid. I bake the bread in the skillet, 30 minutes with the lid on plus 15 minutes with the lid off.This retains steam and make a (slightly) better crust.

finished bread – this photo is awfully dark, because I’m baking after nightfall. When it’s 105 degrees outside, you don’t want to tax the air conditioning any more than necessary.

If your skillet or pot is enameled cast iron (i.e. Le Crueset), I recommed replacing the knob  on the lid with a metal drawer pull from the hardware store. That way you won’t melt the knob, because a 450 degree oven is HOT.

No matter how you bake it, let the bread cool on the counter for at least 30 minutes before slicing for maximum moisture retention inside the loaf.

The dough will keep for a couple of weeks in the frig. You can just pull off some dough & bake a loaf whenever! If the dough gets a tough skin on top, just make sure the skin is on the inside of the loaf when you shape the loaf for rising. It will bake up just fine.

Notes on ingredients:
Better flour = better bread. I use King Arthur Flour (regular unbleached, NOT bread flour)
This is the best yeast ever: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/saf-red-instant-yeast-16-oz

I also use King Arthur’s bread salt but I’m not sure it matters a whole lot. Regular salt works fine.

Repeat after me: NO MORE BAD BREAD.

Go forth, and bake.