No-Knead Bread

It's taken me a year and a half to finally bake the no knead bread recipe from the NY Times. Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery's recipe for no knead bread ran in paper on November 8, 2006. After making the Jamie Oliver bread last week, I figured I should try what tons of bloggers say is the easiest and tastiest bread out there. Seriously, just google no knead bread and there are tons of thoughts about the process.
You start by mixing 3 cups of all purpose flour with 2 tsp. of Kosher salt and 1/3 tsp of dry active yeast. Then pour 1.5 cups of water into the mix. The recipe doesn't specify warm water, but I used it. The dough is really sticky because of all of that water, so use a spatula to mix it and then leave it for 12-20 hours. Yep. It's a long wait. Don't expect to eat the bread until the next day. at night.
Apparently all that time causes that tiny bit of yeast to create the delicious flavor and those terrific bubbles. When the first rise is up, the dough will have an almost beery odor. It's good stuff, but sticky stuff. I used parchment paper (instead of cotton towel as instructed) with a lot of flour tossed on it to prevent sticking to the counter. After watching some of the you tube videos, there are a few moves you need to make, but it's not kneading per se. It's really pulling the dough, the way Kathrine Helmond's face is stretched in the movie Brazil. Fold the stretched sections over itself a couple of times. Then prod it into a ball and wait another two to three hours. Half an hour before that second rising time is up, stick the oven proof heavy pot into the 500 degree oven. I used Ted's Le Creuset pot. I don't have a big one, but when I get home, I'm going to try using my little mini one and halving the amount of dough. Because the recipe uses so little yeast and I just bought a 5lb bag of flour, this recipe is going to save me money. I'm going to replace a cup of whole wheat flour for the white and maybe add flax or something to add more health.
The part that I messed up was plopping the dough into the pot. I had planned to just throw the dough on the parchment paper into the hot pot, but I feared the hot pot and the dough flipped itself over. The parchment was on the top instead at the bottom. So I had to peel it off, thus losing a little bit of height on the bread. I should have also put the bread it a smaller container during the second rising so that the dough would have created more height. Also, my dough was in more of a blog than a ball. Better shaping would have helped. The bread baked with the lid on for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. I only put it up to 500 in the preheat stage because I figured I'd screw around with the potting. After the half hour, remove the lid carefully, the knob on the top will be red hot, so use a pot holder! Bake for 15 to 30 more minutes. I was practicing my knot tying, so I wasn't really paying attention. It took about 30 minutes to burn it a little bit on top, so don't wait that long. The bread actually develops its crunchy crust as it cools, you can hear it crackle as the cooler air surrounds it. Do not cut into it for another half an hour. Some people report a gumminess to the dough if you don't wait. It's really worth it! I made a fantastic egg salad and cucumber sandwich with this bread. It's so good I can't wait to finish it and make another loaf.