Perfect No-Knead Bread SAVE OR PRINT AS PDF
A moist, artisan sourdough-style loaf with spelt or wheat (or both!)
Ingredients:
- 3 cups (400g) flour (My favourite ratio 2:1 white/wholemeal spelt)
- 1 ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt (if using flakes, grind in a mortar and pestle first)
- ¼ teaspoon dried fast action yeast
- 1 and 5/8 cup (400ml or 13 fluid oz) of water
- Olive oil spray
- A heavy oven-safe pot with a lid such as a Le Creuset or Pyrex – large enough to hold about 3-4 litres in volume. Otherwise improvise with a loaf tin and a couple of heavy baking sheets, like I do.
Instructions:
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt and yeast. Add the water and just stir and blend together until you have a shaggy dough. (If using wholemeal flour, add a 2-3 tablespoons more water.) Cover with cling film and leave at room temperature for 18 hours.
- Check your mixture after 18 hours – it should look bubbly and alive. Take a spatula and turn the dough over in the bowl a few times, folding it in on itself here and there and then shaping it into a ball while still in the same bowl. Cover it again with cling film and let it rest again for approx 2 hours.
- Around 30 minutes before you are ready to bake your bread (or longer if you have a slow to heat oven or if it’s very cold where you are) place whatever you are using to bake your bread into the oven while it is pre-heating. It needs to be at least 230°C (approx 450°F).
- When the dough is ready, remove the pot/tin from the oven and spray quickly with olive oil. Then tip the dough straight into the pot/tin, cover and bake for around 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and bake for a further 10-15 minutes until there is a gorgeous caramel-coloured crust on top.
- Cool on a rack for at least an hour before slicing… unless you simply can’t wait. In which case, devour with relish.
Notes:
I like to start a couple of breads at the same time, starting on a Friday/Saturday night and then baking them after lunch the next day. Then I’ll eat one/freeze one. But I warn you, this bread is so yum it disappears very quickly! (And it will easily last for a week in the fridge, if you must insist on ignoring it for that long.)
There’s no need to ‘activate’ the yeast with water/sugar beforehand.
Spelt people – your first spelt dough will vary in consistency depending on the ratio of white/wholemeal spelt flour you use. If you’re using all white spelt flour, your initial mix will be fairly wet. This is perfectly normal. If you’re using wholemeal (especially 100% wholemeal) it will be much drier, in which case add a few more tablespoons of water. You want it shaggy, not like play dough that has been sitting around uncovered for too long, OK? 
Don’t worry about the temperature of your kitchen – the yeast will do its thing regardless. If after 18 hours you don’t have a stringy, bubbly sponge-like dough, just leave it a little longer. And please, I know how busy life can get so if you forget and accidentally leave it longer than 18 hours it will still be delicious.
By Natalie Peluso @ HungrySoprano.com
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