NY Times No-Knead Bread

It happened! For my birthday, my amazing boyfriend got me a Le Creuset dutch oven in the gorgeous new “Ocean” color. It’s so pretty 🙂

If you read this blog at all, you can probably guess my level of excitement here. After my failed attempt with a previous purchase, I’m happy to have this beautiful piece in my kitchen and couldn’t wait to put it to good use! One of the first things I made with it was this very simple No-Knead bread.

This is really the easiest thing. You can even have your nearest 5-year-old make this one.

Start by throwing all your ingredients into a bowl.

3 cups flour, 1/4 tsp. yeast, 1 1/4 tsp. salt.

Next, add in 1 5/8 cups water (5/8 cups = 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp.). Get your freakishly large hands in there and mix everything real good.

Here’s the hard part. Ready?……….. Let it sit. For a REALLY really long time.

Go to sleep.

Go to work.

Come home.

Do some exercise.

Walk the dog.

Watch a movie.

Give yourself a mani/pedi.

Do ALL your Christmas shopping.

Do whatever you gotta do until your dough looks like this (after approximately 12-18 hours). See the bubbles surfacing? Yup, that’s a nicely rested dough.

2 hours before baking time, take the dough out of the bowl. Lay it on a lightly floured surface and fold it over twice. 1, 2 times. Dos. Not tres.

Let it sit another 15 minutes and place the dough on a cotton (not terry cloth) towel generously sprinkled with cornmeal, flour or bran.

Sprinkle the cornmeal over the top of the dough and cover with the towel for about 2 hours.

A half  an hour before the dough is ready, set your oven to 450 with your beautiful dutch oven inside so it gets nice and hot. When the dough is ready, carefully take your pot out of the oven and gently pick up your dough and dump it in. Don’t worry if it’s not perfectly centered in the pot. It’ll work itself into place.

Cover with the lid and bake it for 30 minutes. Remove the lid, and bake another 15-30 minutes for a nice brown crust.

Then voila! You’ve got yourself some freshly baked bread.

It’s beautiful, its delicious and nothing! I mean, nothing! will make your home smell better.

Here’s the original step-by-step video if the recipe still looks a bit complicated. But trust me, its super simple: