I first heard about this watching a Paul Hollywood episode on Food Network UK : No knead bread – Paul Hollywood – New York.
I thought the idea was fantastic and worth a try. Why not let nature do all the work ? I’m all about saving time & effort.
I basically followed that recipe but adapted it slightly.
Ingredients:
500g of Strong White Unbleached Flour
350g of water (at room temperature)
100g of liquid levain / sourdough starter ( or 25g of dehydrated sourdough starter)
2g of fresh baker’s yeast (ou 1g of dried yeast)
10g of unrefined sea salt
Again you can use 20g of fresh baker’s yeast instead of the liquid sourdough starter.
Preparation:
Put the flour in a bowl and create a well in the center. Put the salt in a corner outside of the well. Take a glass and mix the fresh yeast / sourdough starter with some of the water to dilute it and pour it over in the well.
Take your favorite wooden spoon and mix all the ingredients together until the mix is homogeneous. It’s worth it to spend one or two minutes working on the dough with your wooden spoon. It will allow the ingredients to be well mixed and will give better results in the end (based on experience).
Cover with a damp cloth and leave to raise overnight.
Baking:
Preheat your oven at 230°C, with a clean and deep tray / dish at the bottom (tray 1).
Prepare a tray (tray 2) and put some baking parchment on it, or just spread some flour all over it (a bit more more than for the kneading step), which is what I do.
Put your dough on tray 2, sprinkle some flour on top of it and give it a few cuts with a razor blade and put it in the oven.
Just before putting tray 2 in the oven, take a half glass of water and pour it in tray 1. There should be a fair amount of steam created.
Cook for 40-45″ depending on your oven. You might need a try or 2 to know if you are more on the 40″ side or the 45″ side.
Take your bread out and put it to rest on a rack. (Make sure there’s air between the base of the bread and the worktop or the resting surface).
The results should look something like that :
ChezDams 