Artisan No-Knead Bread

Years ago, a group of loosely connected friends decided to read a book called Bread and Wine; a Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist. Half memoir, half cookbook, the book is a lovely compilation of stories and recipes celebrating the everyday joy that is sharing a meal with people you love. At the end of each chapter is a recipe and every couple weeks we would get together and cook the recipes from the book.

It was such a special few months, having dedicated time to be with this group of women, standing in each others kitchens, digging for wooden spoons, pouring wine, dancing and sidestepping around each other as we finished up preparing the recipes. Finally, we would sit down at the table, candles lit, food covering every inch of the table and we would feast. It would always be a little quiet at first, partially from eating and tasting, but also we didn’t know each other all that well at first. We were a little shy, maybe even a little awkward, but the food and the time spent cooking together quickly built a bridge. We told our stories, haltingly at first, and then like a rushing river. We laughed until we cried and a few times we just cried. It was endlessly bittersweet when we finally finished the book and the busyness of daily life pulled us away from each other over the coming months and years.

I know I’ve written about Bread and Wine in the past. My copy is battered after so many years of thumbing through it, looking for recipes. The pages are splattered with sauce and tomato juice, wine dribbles and butter stains. There are pencil marks and notes from cooking through the recipes and paragraphs are underlined from trying to absorb every little morsel of goodness the book had to offer.

When it was time to find some inspiration for this little corner of Yakima Magazine, I did what I often do, which is to pull out my many many cookbooks and start flipping through their pages looking for something that catches my eye and offers some inspiration in my own kitchen. After pouring over all kinds of recipes from riffs on pasta carbonara to butter basted steaks, I came full circle to the simplest of ideas: homemade bread.

For every special meal or good bottle of wine, what is the one thing that always goes with it? Bread. Always bread. There are hundreds of recipes and techniques for ‘no-knead’ bread on the internet. And quite honestly, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed by the time and step by step process of making bread.

But this specific recipe keeps it nice and simple. You don’t need any special tools and a few minutes spent mixing the dough, a little bit of patience to allow the dough to rise and do its thing and within a few hours you can have a fresh loaf of pillowy soft, crusty-on-the-outside bread perfect for entertaining, as a gift for a friend or simply because you feel like having a lovely glass of wine and want something delicious to eat along with it.

This recipe makes two loaves of bread. They can be baked at the same time or the remaining dough can be saved for a later time. The beauty of this recipe is the bread gets better and better the longer it rests in the refrigerator so don’t feel the pressure of baking both at once. If you’ve never baked bread before, this is the perfect recipe to give it a try.

Artisan No-Knead Bread

• 3 cups lukewarm water

• 2 1/2 teaspoons dry active yeast

• 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon Kosher salt

• Parchment paper

In a large bowl, combine warm water, yeast, and salt. Swirl to combine and let sit for 5 minutes. Add the flour, then using a spatula or wooden spoon, mix until a shaggy dough forms. The dough will be uneven but the flour and water mixture should be completely incorporated.

Cover with a warm damp dish towel and leave on the counter for two hours. After the two hours, remove the damp towel and stretch and mix the dough with clean hands. Pull the edges of the dough over itself until a smooth dough forms.

Transfer the dough to an airtight container and place in the refrigerator. Keep in the fridge for a minimum of 4 hours or up to 4 days before baking bread.

When you’re ready to make bread, remove dough from the refrigerator. Divide the dough in half, returning the remaining half to the container and placing back in the fridge.

Shape the dough gently into a round sphere on a floured surface. This does NOT need to be perfect and you don’t want to overwork the dough. Dust the top of the loaf with a sprinkle of flour and allow to rest on the counter or in a dish bowl lined bowl (this helps the dough keep its shape) for an hour.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Transfer dough to a piece of parchment paper. Carefully transfer the loaf to a dutch oven. Use a sharp knife to cut a small cross in the top of the loaf. Place the lid of the dutch oven on the pot and place in the center rack of the oven. Bake with the lid on for 25 minutes and an additional 15 minutes with the lid off. Every oven is a little different, so you may need to slightly adjust baking time with the lid off. Keep an eye on the loaf and when its deeply golden brown, the loaf is done and ready to be taken out of the oven.

Carefully transfer the loaf to a cooling rack and let cool for at least 45 minutes before slicing and serving.