No Need to Knead

A recent article in the New York Times has thrown its readers into a flurry. Complaints and praise of the article have clogged the NYT online recipe discussion forums; websites unrelated to the newspaper have picked up the story; bloggers have published their own rants and raves. This story was not about the recent democratic takeover of congress, or the unconscionable number of deaths in Iraq, or even the discovery that insane amounts of red wine have lengthened the lives of mice. No, this story was about another controversial subject: bread.

A few weeks ago, Mark Bittman sang the praises of a certain Mr. Lahey's bread recipe from Sullivan Street Bakery. Mr. Lahey called it no-knead bread, and insisted that not only was it as good as the bread that the best bakeries turn out, but a six year old could make it without any trouble at all. My interest was immediately piqued as I have almost given up on making homeade bread. I've turned out a decent loaf or two, but not without battle scar burns and a smoldering resentment for recipes that call for baking tiles and bread peels and cornmeal and complicated shaping techniques.

I had been experimenting with a promising recipe I found on epicurious.com, and with pretty good results. The dough is mixed and rises inside of a food processor...which keeps the kitchen counters free of sticky dough and the sink free of dishes. The recipe produced a nice crust (via the rather counterintuitive method of a water bath), but the interior was dense and sort of bland. So, Mr. Bittman's article seemed like an oasis in a desert of disappointing bread baking experiences; but when I set about to replicate his results, I began to worry that I was reaching for yet another bread mirage.

The trouble first surfaced in the NYT online recipe forum when hopeful bread bakers began to realize that Mr. Bittman's written recipe differed from the recipe given in the illustrative video. Either 1 1/2 cups or 1 5/8 cups of water were to be added to the dough, which was or was not to undergo a second rise on a cotton towel, and was to be baked at either 450 or 500 degrees. Faced with such discrepancies, what is a six year old to do?

This recipe is so hands-off and the ingredients so inexpensive that I had just about nothing to lose. Following the written recipe, I mixed up the ingredients into a messy lump, set the stuff in a bowl next to a heating duct, and waited. And waited. At 8 hours, I had a bubbly dough. At 12 hours, I had a ripe-smelling, tan-colored dough. At 18 hours, I had a swollen, gurgley heap of dough unlike any other I had formed into loaf shape in all of my meager bread baking experience. As instructed, I wrestled the thing onto a floured cotton towel, let it swell again, and then tossed it into a pot, threw on the lid, and stuffed it in the oven. No peels, no shaping, no smoking pizza stones, no burns, and no kneading. But, really, the no-knead bit is just a gimmick. Is it really the kneading that keeps people from making bread? Seems to me it's bad bread that keeps people from making bread. But if kneading isn't necessary for baking up a good loaf, and apparently it's not, the kneading can go.

The crust of this bread is a crunchy, crispy wonder, while the interior is chewy with an air-pocket-riddled crumb. Patrick, who would rather eat bread than just about anything else (despite his reservations about white-colored foods), moaned and groaned over this bread to the point of making dinner conversation nearly impossible. It really is that good.

The second time I made this bread, I increased the water a bit, and the rising time by 6 hours (I wanted that bread sooner!). The second loaf might have suffered just a bit in that yeasty, almost sourdough flavor that comes with a longer rise, but the texture was just as good, and the crust even better.

Really Good Bread
from Sullivan Street Bakery (courtesy Mark Bittman for the NYT). Makes one big round loaf.


3 cups all purpose flour, plus a lot more for dusting
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups, plus 1 tablespoon water

1. Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a big bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups, plus 1 tablespoon water. Stir it all up until blended. The dough will be very sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place to rise for 12-18 hours.

2. When the dough surface is dotted with bubbles, it's ready for the next step. Lightly flour a work surface and scoop dough out onto it. Sprinkle a but more flour over surface of dough and fold it over a couple of times. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes.

3. With floured hands, quickly shape the dough into a ball. It won't really hold a "ball" shape at this point, but that's ok. Coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with lots of flour and put dough seem side down on the towel. (Or, better yet, dust a silpat liner with flour and put the dough on that. Less sticking trouble that way.) Dust with more flour, cover with another towel, and let rise for about 2 more hours until it is doubled in size. One of my loafs needed about 3 hours to double in size.

4. At least 30 minutes before the dough is ready, heat the oven to 450 degrees. Place a 6 to 8 quart heavy pot with a lid in the oven as it heats. I used a ceramic pot the first time, and a large oven-proof dutch oven the second time. When dough is ready, carefully removed pot from oven. Slide your hand under the towel and turn dough over into the pot. Give the pot a shake or two to even out the dough. It doesn't matter if it looks like a disaster.

5. Cover pot with lid and bake 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake for another 15-30 minutes, until the loaf is browned. Dump out the loaf and cool it on a rack. I know this is hard--and I almost never succeed at it myself--but try to let the bread cool for at least 30 minutes, or it will squish as you cut it and make the interior more dense.