No Knead Bread

Bread that needs no kneading? What?  Yes and it absolutely works, it's incredibly easy. The hardest part is deciding in  advance when to make the dough, and then waiting  up to 18 hours. If you are willing to give it a try, you can have fresh-baked, crackly-crusty, rustic style bread when ever you want. Letting the dough rise over night is your best choice, I actually made my dough at 11pm last night. Yes I know I am crazy like that, I was surfing Pinterest, and thought, oh heck why not? So glad I did, it also gave me a chance to use my new dutch oven. There are plenty of recipes online for no knead bread, this was a combination of two that I really liked. Don't be scared to give it a try, it really is fool proof. Oh and please don't forget to buy some great butter, to slather on the just out of the oven bread...seriously..Heaven !

3 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 tsp. sal
1 tsp. yeast
1 1/2 cups luke-warm water

Combine the three dry ingredients in a large bowl then pour in the luke-warm water. Stir until completely combined. Dough will look messy and not smooth and that is completely okay. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let sit on the counter overnight. Let it rise anywhere from 12-18 hours. (mine rested about 12 + the extra 2 hours for rising )

 

Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

 Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 240//450°F. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

***any heat-safe covered pot will work fine as long as all the handles and knobs can withstand the 240//450 degrees F required for this recipe.
source here and here