The Best Ever No Knead Bread
By: Eva Taylor
Published: Sunday, December 6, 2009 - 1:49am

Ingredients




3 cups cups all-purpose flour, more for dusting (or 1  whole wheat, 2 cups white)
cup ground flax seed
teaspoon instant yeast
teaspoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup ‘warm’ water
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

Preparation

1 In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water and wine vinegar, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 2-4 hours, preferably about 4, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. 2 Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles (dough will be quite gooey). 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. 3 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, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran 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. 4 At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450F. 5 Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy pot with lid (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic - we always have the lid beside it so the heat goes into the pan faster) in oven as it heats. 6 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 35 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 10 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

About


Adapted from New York Times, which was adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery. Check out the video . Check out my blog .