No knead bread

Ingredients:

2 cups bread flour
1 cup + 1.5 tbsp cold water
1/8 tsp yeast
3/4 tbsp kosher salt
3/4 tbsp sugar (optional)

Directions:

It is interesting that during this pandemic, grocery stores are in short supply of yeast, flour and other baking ingredients. A lot more people are stocking up in anticipation of baking their own breads for fear of stores running out of food. On a positive note, I for one think it is great that more people are cooking and baking for themselves while self-isolating. 

For timid bakers with no automated bread maker, this recipe will remove any fears they may have had. It is simple to make and uses very little yeast. The only drawback is the long fermentation time, but it is well worth the wait as I find the bread tastes so much better than those made in a bread maker. This has become my defacto bread recipe. 

I start making the dough in the late afternoon. In a stainless steel bowl, sift the flour, together. I like to use a mix of multigrain bread flour and white bread flour (Yes I do enjoy sandwiches made with white bread). Next dissolve the yeast in cold water. You do not want to use warm water due to the long fermentation time of the dough. The cold water prevents the yeast from acting too fast as this dough will sit overnight. Add water to the flour and stir together with a wooden spoon or spatula. Add salt. Continue to stir the mixture until the ingredients have fully blended with each other. Scrape the sides of the bowl so you have a ball of dough in the middle. The dough will be stickier and less stiff than your normal bread dough.

Cover the bowl with saran wrap or aluminium foil and let the dough sit at room temperature for 12 hours. Yes you heard right. 12 hours. This length of time is needed to allow the proteins in the flour to form gluten. In an automated bread maker, the time is shorten due to the kneading. Kneading causes the hydration of the flour to happen faster, which causes gluten to form faster. Unlike cake dough, gluten makes the dough stretchy, which is essential to the texture of good bread. Otherwise you would just be making a cake. Just as important as the gluten, the long fermentation time helps to produce a more flavourful bread.

After 12 hours, the dough will have grown twice its original size and appear bubbly due to the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast. The bubbles are trapped in the glutenous dough. Scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl and fold it onto itself towards the center. I rotate the bowl while scraping the sides. One rotation of the bowl is all I do because I'm by nature lazy. That's why I love this recipe. With well floured hands, transfer the dough onto a floured counter. Stretch the dough in different directions. This will help form longer chains of molecules in the protein that make up the gluten. Let the dough sit in the  bowl (covered) for another 4 hours and then do a final stretch. This is referred to as the 3rd fold. Form the dough into a ball.  

Place the ball of dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Let sit uncovered at room temperature for 2 hours. This will allow the dough to rise before baking. I usually like to place the dough in the oven with the light on. The light bulb will raise the interior of the oven slightly above room temperature to help the dough rise faster. You may need to rotate the cookie sheet as the side of the dough closer to the light bulb will rise faster. If you bypass the 3rd fold in process of forming the dough, this will result in a flatter bread.

Preheat oven to 450F. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer bread to a rack on the counter. Let the bread properly cool before cutting, otherwise the bread will dry out prematurely. Because no preservatives are used, this bread will spoil faster than store bought. But it's so good that you'll find yourself scarfing it all down before it has a chance to go bad. I usually make this every 2 or 3 days. I do enjoy the simple things in life. Make sure you have an ample supply of butter. And Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk.