The Easiest Crusty Bread Ever
I have high hopes for myself. I hope one day I’ll be the kind of gal who makes bread from scratch, cans and pickles the leftovers from my organic garden, and feeds my family things I made myself.
I figured bread would be the best thing to start with, because…have you heard? There are bundles of recipes that don’t require kneading or, really, much effort at all. It’s a dump-and-stir kind of thing, only way better than what those dump-and-stir recipes normally yield.
For a few years, I’d been seeing things here and there about Jim Lahey’s No Knead Bread. When I saw this post on the gorgeous blog Honey and Jam, it finally inspired me to give it a go. Not a mistake. This was the easiest recipe with the most satisfying outcome.
A few notes: For me, perhaps because it was a rather humid, rainy day, it took around 7 cups flour to get the dough right. But start with the 6 1/2 and go from there. Also, it yielded a nice, big loaf that I shared with our new neighbors (that started out as a grapefruit-size ball of dough), and a smaller loaf (that started out as a softball-size dough ball) I kept for us. Next time I’ll try to split it more evenly.
Even my dad, a devoted bread kneader, a traditionalist at heart, really liked this bread. I’m going to try variations throughout the next few weeks, and I’ll post the results as they come.
February 8th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Tried this today–and wow! Absolutely delicious. And so easy… Can’t wait to read about the variations you try.
February 9th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Perfect! I love baking bread a this recipe seems to be really good.
February 9th, 2010 at 8:03 am
Hooray! Isn’t it so fun baking bread? Especially when it’s so easy.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Looks good, I to aspire to be the kind of person that always makes their own bread, so I think I’ll give this a go tomorrow.
February 19th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Hi Katie,
I have been making Jim’s No Knead Bread for years, ever since it came out in the New York Times Food section. It is the easiest bread and you can do so much with it. I’ve made it savory and sweet and get requests for it all the time. He now has a cook book out that I just recently got on all of his No Knead variations. The interesting thing about his pictures in the book is how dark all of his breads come out. Happy Baking!