As regular readers know, I’ve been experimenting with homemade bread for months now. My early results ranged from inedible to palatable. Some loaves even went directly from the oven to the trash can. In retrospect, I handicapped my learning process by adopting and abandoning several different methods and recipes before perfecting one. After initial success with Bittman’s no-knead bread technique, I decided to stick with it. Ironically, in my attempt to improve the recipe (and others like it), I ended up teaching myself how to properly mix and knead dough. Now I can tell when dough needs more flour or more water, and what’s appropriately “sticky” and what “dry” should feel like. In other words, I finally feel competent when it comes to baking bread, but not overconfident. Yet.

I’ve tweaked Bittman’s no-knead bread recipe by incorporating tips from America’s Test Kitchen and adding my own touches:

Chad Chandler’s No-Knead Knock-off Bread Recipe
(Print View)

Ingredients:

• 3 Cups *King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
• All-Purpose Flour (as needed for dusting work surface and kneading)
• ¼ Tsp instant yeast
• 1¾ Tsp table salt
• ¾ Cup warm water
• ¾ Cup beer (plus extra if needed)
• 1½ Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp olive oil (or an oil with a higher smoke point)

Instructions:

1. Pour dry ingredients (flour, yeast, salt and garlic powder) into a large bowl and mix them with a rubber spatula.
   
   
2. Add all wet ingredients (water, beer and vinegar) to the dry mixture. Using spatula, fold dough lumps over and over, scraping up dry flour from the bottom of the bowl until it starts coming together. After a while, you should have a sticky mass. When done right, you’ll have to scrape the dough off the spatula. If all the flour hasn’t come together after a minute, add a little more beer until it does. After a splash or two, it’ll seem to suddenly go directly from too dry to too wet. That’s normal.
   
   
3. Cover the bowl with a (non-terry cloth) towel and let it sit at room temperature for about 16 hours. There’s not much difference between dough that rests for 12-20 hours, but 16 is my arbitrary default.
   
   
4. I know it says “no-knead” in the title, but you need to work the dough a little. If the yeast has done its job over the past 16 hours, the dough ball flattened out and bubbled like this: (the wetter the dough, the larger the mass)
   
   
   
   You just need to re-shape it into a ball. Plus, the light kneading process will make it rise more. Lightly flour a work surface, even if you’re using a silicone mat. Then rub some flour on your hands and slowly scrape the dough out of the bowl with your fingers, like this:
   
   
   
   Knead the dough just enough times to firm it up and make it less sticky (maybe 15 times), adding more flour whenever the ball starts to stick to the working surface. It should feel a little like biscuit dough when it’s done.
   
   
5. Clean the dough bowl and spray the bottom with non-stick spray (or rub some olive oil around with a paper towel). Drop the kneaded dough ball back into the bowl and let it rise again for a couple of hours.
   
   
6. After 1½ hours, put a well-oiled cast iron dutch oven in the middle of the stove and preheat it to 425°. Most recipes call for a 6 quart pot, but my 4 quart Chantal dutch oven (fake Le Creuset from TJ Maxx) works fine.
   
   
7. At the two-hour mark, take the pot out of the oven. Without distorting the dough ball too much, pick it up and plop it into the middle of the heated pot. Using kitchen shears, cut a small slit in the top of the dough ball to let steam escape. Cover with the lid and put the pot back in the oven.
   
   
8. After 30 minutes, take the lid off the pot.
   
   
9. After another 25-30 minutes, take the pot out of the oven. Use a towel to lift the bread out of the pot (or flip it upside-down and shake the bread loose) and let it cool on a raised rack for at least an hour.
   
   

This recipe might look complicated, but it’s really easy. And did I mention that it looks and tastes great?

Once you’ve mastered the basic recipe, learn how to add flavors to your bread.

*If you’re going to follow this recipe, you must use King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour (the blue and white bag). King Arthur is high-protein flour, which means it absorbs more liquid than generic, all-purpose flour. If you want to use another brand, you’ll have to cut down on the liquid.

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