If you want utterly flawless no-knead bread, use the New York Times recipe. But if you want something extremely good and a lot less persnickety to make, try this recipe. It’s extremely popular around the Sojourners offices and, in honor of Sojourners magazine’s May 2012 issue about food justice, from farm to table, we’re bringing it to you!
For a print version of Sojourners' bread recipe click here.
Step one: Mix.
-4 cups bread flour (or whole wheat flour, or all-purpose white flour).
-1.5 teaspoons salt
-heaping 1/2 teaspoon yeast
-2 -2 ¾ cups water
-In a large bowl, stir dry ingredients. Then mix in water; start with 2 cups and add more as needed (if you have strands of dough covered with flour, you are almost there).
-Cover loosely and let sit on counter (or in warm turned-off oven) 8-12 hours. Amazing flavor develops now!
Step two: Fold.
-With a spatula, fold the dough over on itself firmly a dozen times. Dough will deflate.
Re-cover loosely and let rise an hour or more. And why not spend that hour perusing a copy of Sojourners magazine, the award-winning monthly publication that, for more than 40 years, has been inspiring and informing readers with its biblical peace and justice perspective?
Step three: Bake.
-Preheat pizza stone (or enameled Dutch oven top and bottom; cast iron 10” skillet; or, in a pinch, a cookie sheet) to 450 degreees.
-Distribute a few tablespoons flour over the top of the dough and, scraping down the sides, around the sides of the dough. Try to avoid deflating dough more than necessary.
-Plop the dough onto pizza stone/iron skillet/Dutch oven/cookie sheet (flour side down). Slash the top from side to side with parallel shallow gashes. Close oven.
-Bake for 20-35 minutes. Bread is done when it sounds hollow when thumped, and when the outside is, in places, as dark as cinnamon (although not as red). Overbaking a little is way better than underbaking!
-Let bread sit 10-15 minutes before cutting; it’s still baking inside. Then enjoy!
Elizabeth Palmberg is an associate editor of Sojourners magazine. She tweets @ZabPalmberg.
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