A few weeks ago I saw a Mark Bittman article about a loaf of bread that requires no kneading, is baked in a pot instead of a stone, and has a superior “rustic” crust.
Low humidity has always plagued home “hearth” baking on a bread stone. Commercial ovens have a steam-injection mechanism that keeps the conditions right for a nice, thick crust and a lot of “oven spring”—the extra rise that happens at the beginning of baking. I struggled with humidity in my oven before, and I thought I’d hit the peak of what was possible in a home oven. But I’d never really loved the crust of my breads.
Obviously, I was not thinking beyond the baking stone. Baking in a covered pot is a clever home technique when coupled with a very high-moisture dough, as it helps establish a humid environment for the critical first few minutes of baking (the cover is removed at the end, for browning).
Until today, when I finally got a chance to make the Bittman bread. Here’s the loaf that just came out of our oven:
This loaf is amazing. The crust is serious, like an Italian loaf from High Rise, and the crumb is perfectly creamy:
But the simplicity of this recipe is what makes it a gem. I have made a lot of bread over the past couple years, and today I felt like I was cheating, because this loaf took less than 10 minutes of work, spread out across 24 hours. Not only is kneading eliminated, but so is the separate pre-ferment (this bread is 100% poolish—fine with me!), the scoring, and the precarious transfer of loaf to stone. This is truly one of the quickest recipes I can think of.
Anyway, here is the Times recipe for this bread, and here is my slightly rephrased version of it, for when the Times recipe is no longer freely available:
Mix
- 3 cups (430 grams) high-quality bread flour
- 1/4 tsp instant yeast
- 1 1/2 tsp salt (more would be OK too)
in a large bowl. Add
- 1 5/8 cups water (345 grams)
and stir until hydrated.
Cover and wait 12-18 hours, the longer the better, until you see little bubbles along the top of the mixture.
Turn it out onto a floured counter. Sprinkle flour on top, enough to pull the dough out and fold it over itself, envelope-style. Cover and rest it for 15 minutes.
Coat a cloth towel with flour. Shape the dough into a ball with a seam, and place it seam side down on the towel. Sprinkle flour and/or oats on top. Cover with another towel and let it rise for 2-3 hours, until more than doubled in volume. Half an hour before the rise is finished, preheat oven to 450°F, with only the bottom rack in place, and put a medium to large covered pot inside as the oven heats up.
When the dough is ready, dump it into the hot pot, seam side up, cover, shake to evenly distribute the dough if needed, and bake 30 minutes. The seam acts as a score, so it eliminates the step where you might score the dough before baking it.
Take the lid off, bake another 15-30 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a rack for an hour or so at least (it’s still cooking…).
I think there’s a lot of potential variations. I’m really curious to see what my mom does with it; she has perfected whole-wheat bread and could probably make an excellent whole-wheat version of this.