No Knead Bread

I’m going to make a confession. I really like kneading bread. I don’t understand when people want to do less kneading.

Maybe I LIKE the misery..

So I’ve always ignored these no knead recipes. But I got sucked in the other day, browsing bread recipes in lockdown, as we all are. I saw some pictures of some bread that just had the best crust and looked artisan-bakery perfection.

Can't argue with that crust

It was no knead. I gave it a go.

And it turned out GREAT. The best part is that it takes almost no time to prep the dough, then you can leave it in the fridge for up to 7 days before baking! This means I can have fresh bread in the morning. Don’t underestimate how wonderful that is.

The secret of the crust is the steam generated from cooking it in a pre-heated lidded dish. Magical.

Rye Bread

Gluten-free people, look away now..

I really enjoy baking bread. That feeling you get when you uncover the bowl and the dough has risen and looks picture-perfect just cannot be beat. Now, I have tended toward baking white breads, which are fairly easy to work with, but I love the taste of denser, darker breads.

Rye flour is notoriously harder to work with. You don’t get a soft, pliable dough like you do with normal bread flour, but it is by no means impossible to bake a rye loaf, especially if you use half regular white bread flour and half rye. And the flour itself is easy to find, my local supermarket had their “own brand” version, even!

One issue I had with mine was that it actually rose quite a lot quicker than I was expecting, but I continued to leave it to prove, according to the recipe I had used. I think that made for a slightly too malty loaf for my tastes. This loaf doesn’t really need to rise overnight, 4-6 hours in a warm place is plenty.