The Prudent Pantry: No-knead Bread Recipes

When you think about baking bread, you probably think of yeast proofing, mixing by hand, kneading, waiting hours for dough to rise, punching down the dough, kneading some more, rising again…

It's exhausting just to think about.

I bake bread every week and my reality does not match that image! Thanks to the increased interest in food in the last ten years or so, several no-knead recipes have become available and I am a convert.

The early varieties that I saw were along the lines of this New York Times bread recipe, which requires no kneading but a great deal of rising time (no problem if you plan ahead). Most, if not all, of this type of no-knead bread are baked in a Dutch oven, which is a covered, sometimes enameled, cast iron pot. I never tried this type of bread, though I certainly meant to, because I lack the Dutch oven. Good ones cost hundreds of dollars, and reviews of less expensive varieties led me to believe that over time my investment would not be worthwhile, as the pots would not last long.

A couple of years ago I heard of a then-new book called Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day. I was intrigued, and intended to borrow the book from my library. It had a long wait time (many other people put holds on it first) and while I waited I had a birthday and received an Amazon gift card. I went ahead and bought it sight-unseen--a sometimes-risky thing to do, but it paid off!

Since last summer I have bought bread only once, and have spent so little time on the making of it that I do not feel at all taxed; it truly takes less than five minutes a day (plus baking time, which does not require my direct attention). Once or twice a week I mix up a batch of dough in my KitchenAid stand mixer. Though not inexpensive, a stand mixer is one of the best investments I can think of for a home cook. Mine was a gift several years back, but knowing how much use it gets I would gladly find a way to budget for it if I needed to. (Getting married? Register for a KitchenAid mixer and a Cuisinart food processor. You won't regret it.) It is possible to mix this dough by hand, though! It is a very wet dough, so mixing it is not difficult.

Mixing the dough takes me around ten minutes, including gathering ingredients beforehand and covering the dough when it's done. It rises for just two hours and is then ready to either bake or store for later.

I store my dough in a large plastic container in my refrigerator. When I want to make bread, I just pull off a chunk of dough and shape it. I bake it either on my pizza stone (I already had one; you can find a good one for around $30) or in a loaf pan. The book recommends steaming the dough by placing a broiler pan in the oven and filling it with water. I stopped doing that after the first several times, because we prefer the crust without steam.

I've only made two or three of the recipes in the book, but I've played around with them a bit. My main adjustment was adding some whole-wheat flour, a tricky proposition because wheat absorbs more liquid than all-purpose. I've found the perfect balance in flavor and amounts using King Arthur White Whole-Wheat along with their All-Purpose. One of these days I will remember to pick up rye flour so I can try the peasant loaf in the book!

Do you bake bread?

Annika Barranti is a writer living in Los Angeles and blogging at Through the Looking Glass. She and her husband are raising two children and trying to eat well on a tiny budget.