Crusty no kneed bread

This recipe will take a little while to work out when to take the lid off the casserole dish for your oven. But even with a too-pale or too-dark crust, the bread inside is worth the attempts to perfect the crust.

Ingredients

  • 300g strong white bread flour
  • 5g fast action yeast
  • 5g table salt
  • 210g cold tap water

Method

  1. About 24 hours before you want to bake the bread, mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
  2. Once the ingredients are just about combined (with no dry flour in the bottom of the bowl), cover with clingfilm and place somewhere out of the way.
  3. After about 20 hours, but definitely 2 hours before you want to bake it, tip the damp dough out of the bowl onto a well floured surface.
  4. Shape into a round ball and place somewhere warm and dry to prove, with a cover over it. I like to tip the dough out onto the well floured clingfilm that covered the original ball, shape it, and then place the upside-down bowl over the top for the prove.
  5. Shape into a round ball and place somewhere warm and dry to prove, with a cover over it. I like to tip the dough out onto the well floured clingfilm that covered the original ball, shape it, and then place the upside-down bowl over the top for the prove.
  6. Pre-heat the oven on the hottest setting (or 230 degrees Celsius if it goes hotter) with a cast iron casserole dish in it (the Americans call it a 'dutch oven').
  7. Cut two or three slits in the top of the dough ball before dumping it into the cast iron casserole dish. Return the lid to the top before putting it back in the oven.
  8. Bake for 20 minutes and check the state of the bread under the lid. If it's looking golden then leave the lid on for another 10 minutes, otherwise if it's looking pale then take the lid off.
  9. Bake for a further 25/35 minutes (depending on if you took the lid off at first check or not), until a meat thermometer reads 98 degrees Celsius for the center of the dough.
  10. Leave to rest on the side for at least 15 minutes before slicing and serving with a heary stew.
Serves 4.

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