1. No-Knead Bread Basics

Bake up a fresh loaf of artisan bread without any kneading or complex mixing steps. The no-knead crusty bread recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is perfect for beginners and experts alike. Try the recipe we tested in the video using the recipe below, and then use your leftover dough to make one of the variations shared by authors Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.

No-Knead Bread Recipes

• Original No-Knead Bread Dough (featured in this video)
• Neapolitan Pizza Dough Recipe
• 100 Percent Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread Recipe
• Sticky Pecan Caramel Rolls Recipe
• Easy Naan Bread Recipe
• Caramelized Onion and Herb Dinner Rolls Recipe
• Gluten Free Bread in Five Minutes a Day

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Alyssa Warner: This no-knead bread recipe comes from the December/January 2008 issue of Mother Earth News. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, writers of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, share the basic bread recipe from their book, as well as modifications for gluten-free bread, pizza dough, whole wheat sandwich bread, sticky caramel buns, naan, and an onion and herb dinner roll.

[00:00:23] They write, “A one or two-week supply of this dough is made in advance and refrigerated. Mixing it takes less than 15 minutes. Every day, cut off a hunk of dough and quickly shape it without kneading. Allow it to rest briefly on the counter, and then toss it in the oven. We don’t count the rest time or baking time, usually about 30 minutes to an hour each, in our calculation because you can do something else while that’s happening.

[00:00:49] If you bake after dinner, the bread will still be fresh the next day. Higher moisture breads stay fresh longer. But the method is so convenient that you’ll probably find you can cut off some dough and bake a loaf every morning before your day [00:01:00] starts. If you wanna have one thing to do every day that is simply perfect, this is it.”

[00:01:06] So check out the recipe below to read the full article. So my favorite thing about the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day no-knead dough recipe is that it is incredibly fast and incredibly easy. This is the container from the last batch of this dough. It’s really nice to have all of these little bits of flour sticking to the side because this will help our new dough gain a mature flavor a little bit faster.

[00:01:34] All we’re gonna do, and it’s very easy, is we’re going to combine in our tub the flour, unbleached all-purpose

[00:01:50] And the water, yeast, and salt

[00:01:58] And mix. And that’s [00:02:00] literally it. That’s the whole recipe. It’s wonderful

[00:02:09] Literally, you put it all together and you let time and cold refrigerator temperatures do the rest of the work And it is surprisingly consistent in results, and it keeps for up to two weeks in your fridge. And I can still see, this is why I like these plastic tubs. They’re lightweight, they stack well in my freezer, or my fridge, excuse me, and you can see when there’s still flour that hasn’t been mixed in at the bottom

[00:02:52] Now they’re very adamant, don’t knead it. I’m just working the flour in. And it was hard to mix[00:03:00]

[00:03:05] All right. And that’s it. This shaggy mess

[00:03:13] Is going to go into this container, and tomorrow it’s gonna come out bread. We’re gonna go ahead and leave this at room temperature for two hours, up to five hours without problem. I’m gonna stick it in the fridge. Make sure not to use an airtight lid. I like these because they just, they don’t really secure on.

[00:03:32] Then we’re gonna stick it in the fridge. It’s gonna rise and fall overnight. It’s gonna do its own thing, and then later we can use it to make any number of recipes. Do give their book a try if you like this idea. I know I really like it. So on the day of baking, you’re gonna go ahead and take your container of dough out of the fridge, and it should look kind of something like this.

[00:03:55] It’ll have a pattern of rising and falling without you even touching it, and it [00:04:00] doesn’t really matter where it is in that pattern when you’re ready to use it. So we’re gonna open this up, and look at that

[00:04:14] I’m gonna sprinkle a bit of flour on the top and take about a grapefruit size of dough and sit it on a floured surface. And much like forming any other high-hydration dough, we’re gonna make sure that the bottom of it gets floured, and then we’re gonna gather up the wet sides of the dough so that the floured sides of the dough are on the outside

[00:04:53] And you wanna turn it over And pick a spot that’s not so flowered and pull [00:05:00] towards yourself

[00:05:08] All right. What I like about this bread is that because you only really have to put effort into it when you’re making the dough and when you’re forming the loaf, it doesn’t feel like a waste of time to make a smaller loaf. If I had spent all day folding or kneading and baking this for this small of a loaf, I might be a little bit sad.

[00:05:29] And we’re gonna let this rise on a pizza peel Go ahead and sprinkle it very generously with cornmeal. Doesn’t really matter what kind of cornmeal. This is just to keep it from sticking

[00:05:45] And put it seam side down onto the peel. And the other thing that we’re gonna do is we’re going to sprinkle it with some bread flour to make sure that it doesn’t dry out while it’s rising. And we’re just gonna [00:06:00] let this sit for about 40 minutes, and then we’re gonna stick it in the oven

[00:06:12] So this has been sitting for a little more than 40 minutes. It’s just a little bit over-proofed, but this recipe is so forgiving that it’s gonna be just fine. You can score your bread with a lame with a little razor blade, but special tools are not necessary. You can just use a serrated knife. We’re gonna do just an X across the top.

[00:06:32] Make sure that you have a nice floured surface to work with to reduce the drag of the blade, and slash

[00:06:44] Try not to go back and forth, just pull. And now this is going to go into the oven with a hot pan of water onto a baking stone at 450 degrees till it’s dark, crusty brown[00:07:00]

[00:07:03] If you don’t have a pizza peel, you can use the back of a pan

[00:07:33] Here is our artisan bread out of our overnight no-knead dough. We know it’s done because it’s internally 190 degrees, and when we knock on it, it sounds hollow. One thing I will say, we wanted to make sure to show you how to pour the hot water into the oven underneath the loaf, but that means we left the oven door open a little too long.

[00:07:59] So make [00:08:00] sure you do that very quickly or you won’t get as much heat in the oven, you won’t get as much steam, and you don’t get as pronounced an ear. Like this has a very small ear. But it’s still very well-cooked and it’s still gonna be delicious!