Minimalist Bread with a Crispy Crust

 This week, I made bread. I made no-knead bread, and it was great. It wasn’t just great “for no-knead bread,” or great “for homemade bread.” It was just great.

My mom makes delicious bread from the La Brea Bakery cookbook (our favorite is rosemary olive oil), so I am a bit of a bread snob. I refuse to eat pre-sliced bread of any kind. However, despite my high bread standards, I had never made bread before. But when I found this recipe, which is originally from Mark Bittman’s column The Minimalist for the New York Times, I just had to try it.

I frickin' love bread

If you aren’t familiar with Mark Bittman, familiarize yourself.  We have two of his books at our house: How To Cook Everything (which I recently recommended to a friend who, in the fall, is going to be cooking her own meals for the first time in her life) and The Best Recipes in the World.  If I need a good, simple recipe on the fly, Mark is always the guy I turn to.  As much as I love avant-garde chefs, I always trust Mark Bittman to give me straightforward, delicious recipes.

So when he says that this bread “is incredible, a fine-bakery quality, European-style boule that is produced more easily than by any other technique I’ve used, and will blow your mind,” I pretty much have to trust him.

I really recommend reading the original New York Times article, because it explains very articulately why the bread is so special. I will simply tell you that the dough is so wet that it would be impossible to knead, so you have to have patience and let time do all the work for you. It takes some planning, but trust me: it's worth the wait.

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran (optional)
 
1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.
Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

And, 24 hours later, there you have it!  I was very pleased with the results, and best of all, it goes with everything: butter, olive oil, jam, honey, or meatballs and marinara sauce.

I also love meatballs.  Anyhow, enjoy the bread!