This bread recipe made it’s way to me from the NY Times a while ago and I just got around to making it yesterday. The reason it took me so long is that it prefers to be baked on a baking/pizza stone (you don’t have to, but I wanted to) and that just seemed like alot of effort… booorrriinnnggg! But that’s the only other white bread recipe I had hanging out in my links folder so I decided to give it a whirl anyway.

It should really be called the “No kneed chewy inside/crunchy outside bread” because that’s essentially what it is. The dough is SUPER loose when you stirr it together… more like an incredibly sticky blob which later grows to be an enormous blob. You don’t kneed it so you can’t really ever get it under control. It stays messy and sticky the whole time until it’s safely out of the oven, baked into a hard shell. Ok, so here’s essentially how easy it is. You mix together the four ingredients (wow, I know, FOUR whole ingredients!? How will you ever manage? Heehee..) and let them hang out in a warm place for two hours, then you take 1/4 or 1/2 (I just made two larger loaves instead of the four the recipe wanted me to make) and kind of roll it into a ball between your hands, let it rest another 40 minutes then pop it onto a preheated pizza stone for 30 minutes with a bucket of water sitting in the bottom of the oven. While I’m writing this, it sounds to me like this dough is going to a baking spa with an itinerary something like: 10:00- get stirred 10:15-12:15- rest in warm place 12:15- get rolled and patted down with flour 12:30-1:45- rest in warm place again 1:45-2:15- loll around on hot stone and GET BAKED! Baking spas sound like my kind of deal… bake and relax…

Recipe: Simple Crusty Bread

Recipe from NY Times

1. In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours).

2. Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

3. Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

4. Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Yield: 4 loaves.

Variation: If not using stone, stretch rounded dough into oval and place in a greased, nonstick loaf pan. Let rest 40 minutes if fresh, an extra hour if refrigerated. Heat oven to 450 degrees for 5 minutes. Place pan on middle rack.