I‘ve never baked bread from scratch before and this is my 1st ever successful good crusty bread. I’m very pleased with it.
A good girlfriend of mine, Kit found several No-Knead Crusty Bread recipes for me coz she knows that I’ve allergy problems and couldn’t use my fingers to knead bread and that I don’t have a mixer.
In fact, I’ve tried them all but I found Janet of Simply So Good with the best and easiest to follow recipe. Her’s now THE basic recipe I use to make different flavoured breads – mostly savoury but sweet too.. 🙂

NoKnead Crusty Bread with Peach n Rum Jam

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups all purpose (plain) flour
  • 1¾ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp instant or rapid-rise yeast
  • 1½ cups (warm) water

timetable

recipe

    Makes 1 loaf
    Prep time 5 mins
    Rising time 12-18hrs
    Cook time 2 hrs
    Total time 24 hrs
24hrs
total time

NoKnead Crusty Bread (2)

Preparation:

  1. In a large mixing bowl, mix flour, salt and yeast together.
  2. Add water and mix (a silicon spatula works great) till a shaggy mixture forms.
  3. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for between 12-18 hrs in a warm place (on worktop in the summer or in oven in the winter). Don’t Refrigerate. This is not optional. It takes that much time to proof dough. The reason why a large bowl’s needed, is coz dough will start to rise. So, overnite (±12 hrs) works great.
  4. Preheat oven to 230C.
  5. When oven has reached 230C, put a (I used a 3L) cast iron pot or casserole dish with a lid in oven and heat pot for 30 mins.
  6. Meanwhile, pour (or scrap) dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball. (My method: Wipe worktop with a wet cloth, place a piece of baking paper on wet surface. Scrap with a spatula, dough from top side back to middle of dough, continue till dough comes away from sides easily. Sprinkle flour (I love using semolina) generously on baking paper. Then, scrap with a spatular, dough onto baking paper and shape into a ball. Then sprinkle flour (or semolina) on surface of dough.
  7. Cover with plastic wrap (sprinkle flour (or semolina) on surface of dough to prevent plastic wrap from sticking to dough.). and let set while pot’s heating.
  8. Remove hot pot from oven, remove lid (be careful here – pot will be very hot!) and drop in the dough (carefully lift baking paper with dough and put them into pot).
  9. Cover and return pot to oven to bake for 30 mins.
  10. After 30 min, remove lid and bake an additional 15 mins (to brown crust).
  11. Remove bread from oven (also baking paper, if using) and place on a cooling rack to cool before slicing.

* In italic – my own improvisation

Note: Total time’s 24 hours – to make time management easier but actually it could take between 14-24 hrs.. 🙂

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I’ve made different variations with different flavourings several times over the last few months. It remains my favourite basic crusty bread recipe.. 🙂

With grated cheese:
No-Knead Cheese Bread with Spicy Tomato Soup

With parmesan, sundried tomatoes & ham:
NoKnead Parmesan, Sundried Tomato & Ham Bread

With mixed onions (shallots & spring onions) & grated cheese:
Mixed Onions Cheese Bread

With olives & grilled paprika:
NoKnead Olives n Grilled Paprika Crusty Bread 2

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For better step-to-step in making the Crusty Bread, please visit Simply So Good.. Or her forum Crusty “No-Knead” Bread Forum.



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