No knead bread recipe based on Jim Lahey's original concept. A very easy bread recipe, unfailingly sucessful for beginners, especially if you have a Dutch oven or any other lidded cast iron casserole dish.
You all out there who think ‘oh right, a bit of cake is all very nice, I can manage that, but making bread is for the seriously advanced and I won’t go near it’. I’m talking to you. And I’m only going to ask you one question: have you got a cast iron casserole? If the answer is yes, you’re in business. This bread can be the first you’ve ever made.
I insist on that cast iron casserole dish because it genuinely makes baking a loaf totally fool-proof. It is called Dutch oven by bakers and makes the bread come out excellent every time.
I always bake my bread on Saturdays, without fail. Sometimes there’s an urgent need to bring it forward, if a crowd of voracious Bread Eaters descends on the house, but I don’t like doing that cause I’m big on routine. Some people unkindly call it OCD, or worse. So this is a perfect recipe as I make the mix the night before, it sits happily overnight in a warm place and the next morning all it needs (kneads!) doing is fold, stretch, or skip altogether and just dump into a proving basket and bake after a while.
See for yourself.
The beauty of it is also that it can come in a vast array of variations, depending on what flour you use, whether you add seeds, nuts, maybe raisins, poppy, herbs or even cheese. I think it is best with a mix of white and wholemeal bread flour as basis, though I’ve been known to make it all-white. The rosemary is a simple enhancement.