Homemade No-Knead Bread Recipes

By Karen Keb
Published on January 21, 2011
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Dill Bread is one of the best no-knead bread recipes offered in GRIT's 2010 Guide to Homemade Bread.
Dill Bread is one of the best no-knead bread recipes offered in GRIT's 2010 Guide to Homemade Bread.
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All that you need to create fantastic loaves of homemade artisan bread.
All that you need to create fantastic loaves of homemade artisan bread.
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I use a rare 3 1/2-quart enameled cast-iron Dutch oven to bake my loaves.
I use a rare 3 1/2-quart enameled cast-iron Dutch oven to bake my loaves.

I used to be intimidated by bread baking. I thought of it as a monumental task that only homemakers invested in … mixing, kneading, waiting for multiple rises, expensive stand mixers with dough hooks, etc. I hate to admit it, but I marched down to the grocery store and bought the $4 mini loaves of “artisan” bread trucked all the way from California. Not my finest hour, I know. Come to find out, using easy homemade no-knead bread recipes, it’s easier than I thought.

Homemade No-Knead Bread Recipes:
Basic White Bread Recipe
Oat Raisin Bread Recipe
Cardamom Cherry Bread Recipe
Rye Bread Recipe
Wheat Bread Recipe
Dill Bread Recipe
Chocolate Cherry Bread Recipe
Parmesan Pesto Bread Recipe
Cranberry Walnut Bread Recipe
Sun-Dried Tomato Bread With Onion

My excuse for not baking bread from scratch was that I didn’t have time, nor did I have all that fancy equipment. Enter no-knead bread – a magical mixture of flour, salt, yeast, water and time. The world of homemade, thick-crusted, moist-crumbed, real artisan bread opened up to me, and it will for you, too.

After seeing a brief blurb about Jim Lahey’s book My Bread (W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 2009) in a food magazine, I was instantly intrigued and rushed right out to get it. According to Lahey, anyone could easily make no-knead, artisan-style bread in their home kitchen with a minimal amount of time, equipment and effort. Really? It all sounded too good to be true … but as it turned out, it wasn’t.

The following method of bread making takes a small bit of forethought, some mixing and a lot of time in between. It’s a “slow rise” method in which the flavor is a result of slow fermentation, and the texture is the result of baking in a cast-iron pot. The yeast is eased to life over time (12 to 18 hours), rather than shocked to life with warm water and sugar. In fact, this type of bread doesn’t require any added sugar. The ingredients are pure and simple – the white loaf calls for flour, salt, yeast, water – and most can probably be found in your pantry at this very moment.

Due to the nature of slow fermentation, you’ll need to start your bread the day before you want to consume it. This may be hard to get your mind around, but the effort is well worth it. There isn’t space in this article to go over the culinary science and reasons behind this method – from fermentation to singing (the wonderful crackling sound the loaf makes as it is removed from the oven that signals the beginning of the important cooling process) – so for that, please get Lahey’s book and commit it to memory.

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