The Best Ever No Knead Bread

Photo: Eva Taylor

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

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.

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.

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.

At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450F.

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.

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.