King Arthur Flour No- Knead Bread

January 15, 2017

King Arthur Flour No- Knead Bread

When I saw a pin on Pinterest of a no- knead delicious looking loaf of bread, I was simultaneously intrigued and doubtful. Was such beautiful looking bread possible to achieve without kneading? I knew there was one way to find out short of actually trying it myself and being sorely disappointed if the results weren't what I hoped for. I went to the website listed on the pin, glanced at the recipe (to verify that there was no kneading involved :)) and then went straight to the reviews listed to see if other bakers had had success with this recipe. When I first went to the website, there were about 700 reviews of the recipe. Almost all of them were positive. The reviewers stated how easy this bread was to make and how good the bread tasted. Those positive reviews were enough for me. I knew I would try this recipe.

I tried it, we loved it and I've made it many times since. I'm going to write out the ingredients/ instructions here but also provide the link to the recipe on King Arthur Flour's website. It contains way more information than I'm providing plus it contains all the reviews. Here's a link to the recipe online: King Arthur Flour No- Knead White Bread

Ingredients:

3 cups lukewarm water

6 1/2 to 7 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1 tablespoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons instant or active dry yeast

Instructions:

***This is my condensed version- the website lists these out with more detail.***

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl.

2. Stir until all of the ingredients are mixed in and combined.

3. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise at room temperature for two hours.

4. After the two hours, place the bowl in the refrigerator and leave there for two hours at a minimum. The dough can stay in the refrigerator for up to seven days.

5. When you're ready to bake the bread, grease a cookie sheet or pan. Take half of the dough and place it on the cookie sheet. Shape it the best you can in a log or round shape, depending on how you prefer it to bake.

6. Place a dusting of flour onto the bread to help keep it moist while it rises again.

7. Let the dough rise at room temperature for one hour.

8. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. Position the rack that you're going to bake the bread on to the middle one in the oven. Place a shallow metal or cast iron pan on the lowest rack. You're going to be placing hot water on this pan when you put the bread in the oven.

9. When your oven is almost preheated, begin heating up one cup of hot water. I put a cup of water in a Pyrex measuring cup/ bowl and microwave it for 2-3 minutes until it's boiling or close to it.

10. When the oven is preheated, take a knife and make two or three horizontal slashes on the top of the bread.

11. Place the pan with the bread dough on the middle rack. Pull out the rack that has the shallow pan in it part way and pour the cup of hot water in it.

12. Close the oven door (probably pretty obvious!!) and bake for 30- 35 minutes until golden brown.

Here are some notes to clarify/ expand on some of the instructions:

Regarding how much flour to use exactly, the website says that the best way is to weigh the flour. You should use 32 ounces of flour. So, that's what I do when I make the bread. I use my kitchen scale. First, I place my bowl on the scale and then add flour until I get the weight of the bowl plus 32 ounces.

I'm always a little concerned that the water I'm using (for the step when you combine all of the ingredients) isn't the correct temperature. The water can't be too hot or too cool or the yeast won't work. I try to aim for just short of hot. Warmer than lukewarm but not hot. I worry about this step every time I use a recipe with yeast... I've only messed it up once (not with this recipe but with a different one) and I never want to do that again.

I use King Arthur brand bread flour not all purpose flour. Before I made the bread for the first time, I read some reviews of the bread that said bread flour was better to use than all purpose flour. According to the KAF website, either one is fine but the texture will be a little different. I want to try it with all purpose flour some day. Also, I only use King Arthur brand flour for this recipe. I use Kroger brand flour for every other recipe that calls for flour. For this recipe, however, I only use KAF. KAF costs more than the Kroger brand flour does but it goes on sale periodically and I buy a few bags when it's on sale. I'm not sure if it would make a difference or not (of course KAF says its flour is the best). I guess I don't mind paying a little more for it especially since I found this wonderful recipe on the KAF website- it's my way of showing my appreciation for the recipe...

The KAF recipe says to divide the dough into 3-4 balls of dough to bake separately. I divide the dough into two pieces rather than three or four. I prefer to have bigger loaves. The bake time is longer since the dough pieces are bigger. Half of the dough almost always takes exactly 35 minutes to bake; I check after 30 minutes.

Adding the cup of hot water to the oven seems like such an odd step- apparently it's what makes the crust so good. It creates steam which results in a loaf of bread with a thick, chewy crust and soft inside. I use a silicon baking glove to take my Pyrex dish of hot water out of the microwave to pour into the pan on the lowest rack.

That's about all there is to it... After I made the recipe for the first time, I sent my sister an email with a link to the recipe and told her she had to try the recipe. She said it seemed too complicated. I think she meant that the written instructions are long if you just glance at the recipe. In reality, it's pretty simple- four easy ingredients to mix then place it in its bowl for two hours, place in the fridge for two hours, then back out for an hour and then in the oven along with some hot water.

I made this bread and a pot of chili for when my sister and her family came to visit us after Christmas. One of my nieces could not stop talking about how good the bread tasted. I reminded my sister that I sent her the recipe and told her she should try it. I think her daughter's love of it convinced her to try it. I gave my sister a bag of KAF to take home with her as an added incentive to try the recipe. Some things are worth giving up a bag of KAF for 😃.

At school this past week, Alyssa and her classmates were assigned to write a poem about their home. Alyssa's poem was heart tuggingly adorable. One line of it was, "my home is the smell of warm baked bread..." If that just wasn't music to my ears. The scent of warm bread takes me back to a drafty farmhouse on cold winter days where loaves of (kneaded and baked) bread awaited. I probably preferred the days when I came home from school and smelled chocolate chip cookies but smelling homemade bread was a close second :).

I'm grateful that I found this recipe, tried it, and that every once in a while, usually on cool fall or cold winter days, our home smells like warm bread.

These pictures are from last week when I made some bread- this doesn't look super appetizing does it?? It's half of the dough ready to go into the oven. It looks like a brain here and not so good. I turned the dough around...