{"id":1979,"date":"2015-02-05T20:23:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T01:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/recipephany.com\/?p=1979"},"modified":"2026-05-14T10:28:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:28:03","slug":"no-knead-rustic-bread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/recipephany.com\/?p=1979","title":{"rendered":"No-Knead Rustic Bread"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m one of millions of home bakers who, after failed attempts at making crusty bread, achieved the impossible with the New York Times\u2019<\/em> No-Knead Bread recipephany created by Jim Lahey (owner of Sullivan Street Bakery) and turned viral by Mark Bittman (big-time food writer).<\/p>\n

With no special ingredients or equipment, this phenomenal bread essentially makes itself. It has the holey, airy, chewy and crusty goodness of a European-style or Tuscan loaf from a respectable bakery.<\/p>\n

We use this for everything, from sandwiches, bread pudding, and bruschetta to (in its last gasp) toasted breadcrumbs. Once a week we stir up the dough after dinner, then bake it the next morning or early afternoon. The toasty aroma and the crackling it makes as it cools raise the cozy quotient of the house, especially during our recent record-breaking snowstorms.<\/p>\n

You get a lot of leeway with this technique. The gluten develops into stringy strands during the long rise, and the dough may not care if you shorten or extend the rising time by an hour or two. You can use all purpose flour, but we have found that the bread rises more with bread flour. It’s a little easier to form the dough into a ball. This is because bread flour doesn’t get as sticky with the same amount of water, and creates a dough with a little more structure. But that’s just a wild guess. Sometimes the bread simply comes out better than other times.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s one immutable requirement: an enameled pot with a tight fitting lid, often called a Dutch oven. Don\u2019t ask us for the science, but we think it has something to do with increasing the humidity around the loaf. Happily, you don\u2019t need to put a Le Creuset on your Christmas list. Our white speckled, 13-inch oval black-enamel-over-steel Dutch oven we got decades ago works like a charm, despite its light weight. One just like it (Granite Ware roaster<\/a>) costs a fraction of what you’d pay for a heavy Dutch oven.<\/p>\n

This recipephany feels like a throw-back to neolithic times. We can see early bakers swirling the sticky dough with their hands, then letting it collect wild yeast from the air until it gets bubbly. After they form it into a ball, they leave it to grow high before they plop it into a small stone oven. Whenever they bake it, it\u2019s okay\u2014nobody is watching the sundial.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t already seen it, take 5 minutes to view Mark Bittman\u2019s famous New York Times<\/em> video<\/a> that upended the baking world. Here is our adaptation of this marvel, which makes a slightly larger loaf than the original. We add just a dash of honey or maple syrup to reward the yeasties for all their labors, since they are the ones saving us the work.<\/p>\n

No-Knead Rustic Bread<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Special equipment:<\/em> 3- to 8-quart enameled Dutch oven. Enamel finish keeps the dough from sticking.\u00a0 Ours (in picture) holds only 2 \u00bd quarts, but its domed lid allows plenty of room for rising.<\/p>\n

Mix:<\/p>\n