Kenji López-Alt's Better No-Knead Bread Recipe

Warning: this bread will make you take a video, so you can record yourself cutting into the crunchy blistered crust.

The bread baking craze of the pandemic has been around since last year, but because I'm a little slower on the uptake (and a backlog of other recipes to explore), I've only been able to get around to baking my own loaves of bread now. There have been batches of terrific cinnamon rolls, courtesy of King Arthur, and an English brioche-like loaf from Paul Hollywood, but this marks my journey into the world of crusty bread loaves that I adore.       

This recipe is the first crusty bread that I'd ever made, and is a success from the first go. The steps are pretty simple to follow, there are no special ingredients. As the name suggests, you just have to mix the ingredients together, and no need to knead. 

The dough has a long downtime. As the dough develops over the course of a week, each step is spaced apart by days. This is a feature and not a bug! It’s great for the days when everybody is stuffed to the brim, but you still have the itch to do something with your hands. Between each long downtime, you can bring it out and work on it a little, then pop it into the fridge at your convenience and let it flourish.   

No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Kenji López-Alt's Better No-Knead Bread, with additional steps taken from his video
Makes 1 small loaf of bread

INGREDIENTS

300g bread flour or all-purpose flour
4.5g (about 3/4 teaspoon) salt
3g (about 1/2 teaspoon) active dry yeast
210g water

STEPS

Whisk flour, salt, and yeast in a large bowl until well-mixed. Add water and combine the ingredients with a spatula until no areas of dry flour remains. Cover the bowl with a lid and let rest at room temperature for between 12 to 24 hours. The dough will rise over the day and double in volume, so choose a large bowl with adequate volume. 

Place the large bowl in the refrigerator, and let rest for at least 3 days (and up to 5 days). The dough might deflate from its time in the fridge. The long resting period allows the gluten to develop, and is not meant for the dough to continue rising further.    

Turn out the dough onto a well-floured surface, such as a large cutting board or a clean table. Turn it once or twice and shape it into a round loaf. Line a large bowl with a well-floured kitchen towel and nest the dough inside. Cover the bowl with a metal tray (you will be turning out the dough straight onto the metal tray and baking directly on it after). Rest it at room temperature for at least 2 hours, and up to 4 hours. 

About 30-45 minutes before you want to bake the bread, preheat oven to 230°C with a rack set in the lower middle position.

When you're ready to bake, turn out the dough onto the metal tray. Coat the blade of a knife with flour and slash the top of the dough about two to three times, 1/2 inch deep each. Set the dough with the metal tray into the oven. Lightly wet a large oven-proof bowl that can fit over the dough (Essentially, you just pour a bit of water into the large bowl, swirl the water around to coat the sides of the bowl and then pour excess water out. You can see the process here - skip to 20:00 minute.) Then set the bowl upside down to cover the dough in the oven.

Bake for 15 minutes with the bowl on, then remove the bowl from the oven and continue to bake for about 20-30 minutes more, until the top and bottom is crisp and well-browned. Remove the bread from the oven. Rest on a wire rack for about 15 minutes before slicing and serving. 

Storing
Excess bread can be wrapped in foil and stored at room temperature for up to three days. Lightly toast in a hot oven or toaster before serving.