No kneading bread is simple and only takes 4 ingredients. This bread makes wonderful leaves of bread that can be baked daily. Just cut size portion of the dough needed, shape, let rise until doubled, and bake. This process only takes 2 to 3 hours. The wait is well worth the time the bread takes to make, a crusty, moist bread.
There is just four ingredients to make No Knead Bread. The key ingredients are flour, yeast, salt and water. Choosing the right flour determines the type bread. If you like rustic bread, the best flour to use is Bread Flour it has 12 to 13% gluten. Then if you want pan bread use unbleached all-purpose flour, this has 10 to 12% gluten. Gluten is what forms structure of the bread, more gluten higher, better shaped loaf. Where the all-purpose flour will be flatter and less height loaf bread.
Yeast is also extremely important this is leaving agents for the bread. The most popular type yeast used is instant fast rinse yeast. This is super yeast giving you a better rise quick and easy. Red Star Premium Instant Yeast is best. But any good in code yeast will work. Note if your yeast date has expired do test to see if it is still active. The test is cup 100 degree water 1/2 teaspoon yeast and 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Let test yeast activate this should take about 10 to 15 minutes maximum. If there is no activity, bubbles and foam form at top, throw it away it’s dead yeast.
Salt is also a very important part of making bread. Choosing a salt that isn’t iodize, just plain salt works well. The purpose of salt is flavor, control grown of yeast and helps developing gluten. Without salt the texture would be off, and bread would be very bland. Be sure that the salt doesn’t come in direct contact with yeast. Putting salt on the other side of flour away from yeast, this keeps yeast from slowing down.
Final key ingredient is water, having the temperature at just right level. The water should be just warm to the touch, somewhere between 100 to 110 degrees. Using a digital thermometer is wonderful way to make sure the temperature isn’t too high. Too high of temperature will kill yeast, about 115 degrees the threshold in killing yeast.
Measuring all the four ingredients accurately is very important. Using a digital scale is best way to measure the ingredients. Digital scales are far more accurate then using volume measurements, in cups, pints, quarts and gallons. Setting the scale to grams is easy way to measure the bakery goods, it’s very accurate. Still USA hasn’t really adopted the metric measures in baking, still this is a great way to measure ingredients. The recipe for no kneed bread will be in both metic and USA measures.
First measure all ingredients accurately, starting with bread flour first, then instant yeast, followed by salt, finally the warm water (105 degrees). These ingredients can be put into a large 6 quart mixing bowl. Be sure to put the yeast on one side of the flour and salt on the other side of the flour. Stir the dry ingredients together. Next add the warm water (105) degrees in middle of the dry ingredients.
Mix add the four ingredients for the bread with spoon or heavy duty rubber spatula. Stirring the bread dough ingredients until well combined and dough becomes elastic. This takes about 1 to 2 minutes of stirring, the dough will become hard to stir as bread dough becomes elastic. Next cover dough with plastic or lid that fits the bowl. Let the bread dough go through the first rise, about 2 hours. The dough should double in size, punch the dough down. Cover the dough again and refrigerate, for up to 5 days.
Cutting bread dough into portions with bowl scraper into desired size. The portion size can range from 8 ounces to 16 ounces. Shaping bread dough into rounds by using your hands, by working into tight ball. Pushing the dough with hands under until the dough gets into tightly shaped round ball.
