No-knead white yeast bread: crackling crust, soft crumb
A beginner's bread that looks like the bakery's: a wet dough stirred with a spoon, no kneading, a long rise that does the work instead of your hands, and a hot oven with steam. A handful of simple ingredients, twenty minutes of work, a loaf for three days.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Mixing 10 min
- Rising 90 min
- Shaping 20 min
- Rising 30 min
- Baking 45 min
- Cooling 60 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneStir the dough with a spoon
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water with the sugar. Put the flour and salt in a large bowl, pour in the yeast water and oil. Stir with a spoon for 2 minutes, until no dry flour remains. The dough is wet and sticky; it can't be kneaded and doesn't need to be.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 380 ml water · 10 g fresh yeast · 2 tsp salt · 1 tsp sugar or honey · 1 tbsp oil
Tip76 percent water to flour: that is a lot. The moisture gives an open crumb and a crackling crust. Don't add flour.
Sticky, shaggy dough, no dry flourLong rise
Cover the bowl with film or a plate and leave at room temperature for 90 minutes, until doubled with bubbles on the surface. Time replaces kneading: the gluten develops on its own.
TipMore time? Cut the yeast to 5 g and leave the dough 3 hours at room temperature, or overnight (8–12 hours) in the fridge; let cold dough warm up for about 30 minutes before shaping. A longer ferment gives a fuller flavour.
Doubled, bubbles on topFold the dough in the bowl
With a wet hand grab the edge of the dough, stretch it up and fold it over the middle. Turn the bowl a quarter and repeat, 8 times in all. The dough visibly tightens and takes shape. Rest 10 minutes.
Stretch and fold, eight times roundInto the tin
Line a loaf tin with paper. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter, roll into a log seam down and put it in the tin. Dust the top with flour.
A log in the loaf tin, seam downSecond rise and preheat
Cover and leave 30 minutes. Meanwhile heat the oven to 220 °C with an empty metal tray or ovenproof dish on the bottom shelf for the water.
Slash and bake with steam
Slash the top lengthwise with a razor or sharp knife, 1 cm deep. Put the tin on the middle shelf, pour a cup of boiling water into the dish below and shut the door quickly. Bake 20 minutes at 220 °C, then lower to 200 °C and bake 20 minutes more.
TipSteam in the first minutes lets the loaf grow in the oven before the crust sets. Without it the loaf is lower and paler.
A lengthwise slash, a centimetre deepOut of the tin, finish and cool
Take the loaf out of the tin and set it directly on the oven rack for 5 minutes so the sides and base brown. The base should sound hollow when tapped. Cool on a rack for an hour: sliced warm, the crumb is gummy and damp.
Straight out of the tin onto the rack, a golden crust
Before you start
With seeds
Add 60 g sunflower, flax or sesame seeds soaked for an hour in water from the recipe. Sprinkle seeds on top before baking.
Half wholemeal
250 g bread flour and 250 g wholemeal, plus 20 ml more water. Darker, more filling, just as simple.
Storing
In a linen cloth or paper bag, 3 days. Not in plastic: the crust softens. Freezes in slices; toast from frozen is like fresh.
