Mark Bittman popularized the technique Steve Lahey created for “no knead” bread. I was skeptical: my first attempt left hunks of raw flour, and it’s not that hard for me to let a KitchenAid knead my bread for 10 minutes. But I tried again later, ensuring I had enough water for the high-hydration Lahey says is needed, and it worked well. In fact, I find it works better than kneaded bread I usually make: the crumb has a more golden yellow color than dough that’s oxidized due to kneading, I think it has more flavor, and it rises as well as any of my others.
The theory is that gluten development doesn’t really require physical kneading -- it will develop by itself given time and enough hydration (water to flour ratio). So while conventionally made breads may be 65% hydration, this is around 80%. It makes it easy to mix, but tricky to form for beginners.
I’ve combined the no knead approach with my usual long slow fermentation. I use little yeast and an extended fermentation (rise) time, slowing it down as much as possible to increase flavor by fermenting in the fridge. You really can taste a difference between short conventional same-day ferments and 2 or 3 days. I ferment in 2 Liter Rubbermaid tubs and cheat a bit on the lift, stretch, fold, flip that Lahey does.
As with my yes-knead bread, I make batard (fatter than baguette) and boule (round) shapes with different baking techniques, discussed below.
I use the “baker's percentage” to easily scale recipes. The idea is that your amount of flour always counts for 100%, and other ingredients are relative to that. So 1000 grams flour and 800 grams water means the water is 80%, you have 80% hydration. I use metric to make measurements easy and find my KitchenAid can handle 1 Kg, which I frequently use to “mix” (not “knead”) the ingredients when I’m doing a lot of baking in a day.
1000 g Flour (I use King Arthur all purpose unbleached)
20 g Salt (I use Kosher, not iodized table salt)
2.5 g Yeast (about 1 tsp)
800 g Water
Combine the dry ingredients well.
Add the water and use a stiff spatula or stand mixer dough hook to combine well;
try not to leave unmixed flour.
Shape into a rough ball -- it’ll be sticky -- and drop into a 2 Liter plastic tub or mixing bowl;
Cover and rise in the fridge for 2-3 days.
It should rise to the top, creating 2 Liters of dough.
The day you bake, take the dough out about 5 hours before you plan to bake.
Redistribute the dough by pulling it up from the bottom and folding over the top; I use a stiff spatula to pull up around the edges then try to roll it over.
Let it rise covered until it again doubles in size, or nearly so, and warms up, maybe 4 hours depending on your kitchen’s temperature.
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| A double batch gives 4 large, forearm-sized batards |
If you’re making batards, cut the dough in half, then for each, roll it out flat by hand,
fold over like a letter, then turn perpendicular and roll it up like a jelly roll tightly.
You want to stretch the outer surface over the core.
Seal the seam with your fingertips and place into cloth-lined wicker baskets or just cloth on the counter with cloth separating each batard roll.
Let them rise until when you press with a finger it doesn’t immediately fill back in (under-risen), but don’t wait so long that it struggles to fill back in (over-risen).
Before it’s finished rising, preheat your oven as high as it will go -- I do 550F plus convection.
If you have a baking stone (cheap quarry tiles work too) preheat it too;
if not, you can just use a cookie sheet.
When the dough’s risen and the oven and stone are bitchin’,
carefully roll the dough out of their baskets or cloth onto the stone or sheet.
Slash the top with a razor or sharp knife, and close the oven door.
Bake for about 30 minutes until the outside is deeply golden, I prefer a dark brown myself as it gives a nutty taste.
Remove to cooling racks to provide ventilation and let cool before cutting;
listen for the cracking sound as it cools :-)
If you’re making boules, you can get a great result by baking in a “cloche”, a hot covered container: it keeps the humidity up so the bread can rise before the crust hardens. I use a large Le Creuset casserole, a Rumertopf clay pot (soaked in water before hand), or a Tagine. If you don’t have one, you can do it free-form on a cookie sheet.
At a friend's house, I didn't have a scale nor stand mixer, so I did a half-sized batch for a boule, and used a food processor to knead the dough about 30 seconds, and used a Tagine as a cloche, and baked at 450F for 30 then 20 minutes:
4 C AP Flour
2 tsp Kosher Salt
1 tsp Yeast
1 3/4 C Cold Water
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| A small-batch boule done in a friend's kitchen between cocktails: total active time was 15 minutes |
Shape the entire dough into a ball and stretch the top outside down and over the sides towards the bottom, creating a taut surface; pinch the bottom closed.
Let rise on parchment covered lightly with a floured cloth.
Rise until a finger-poke doesn’t spring back but not so long it remains a void.
Preheat the pot and lid in a 500F oven while the boule finishes rising.
Carefully remove the pot out of the oven, remove the lid and and gently drop the loaf in the pot by holding the edges of the parchment.
Put on the lid and return to the oven for 30 minutes.
Remove the lid, turn down the heat to 450F and finish baking for 15-30 minutes
until the center’s fully cooked through and the color is deep golden.
Remove bread and cool on racks to allow ventilation, listening to the cracking sound, before cutting.
I get the most control using the oven in my kitchen, but usually throw a few loaves into our outdoor pizza oven after everyone's finished making pizzas. Let it cool down from pizza-friendly 900F to bread-friendly 450F-500F, else you'll incinerate your bread (been there, done that). I put a little door in the opening to keep the heat inside and even, and rotate the bread part way through the baking process. It's a great way of getting the more use of the heat of the oven.
