No Knead Peasant Bread

Ingredients

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 cups warm water
• 1T active dry yeast
• 1.5T honey
• 1.5t kosher salt
• Baker’s Joy (or another non-stick baking spray)

Process

Whisk water, yeast, and honey together and allow yeast to bloom for 10 minutes. Whisk flours and salt together. Add wet mixture to dry mixture and combine with a wooden or rubber spatula, until a wet shaggy dough forms. Cover and let rise in a warm dry place for about 30 minutes, or until approximately doubled.

Scoop under the dough ball with the same spatula from before, pull up, and tuck onto the top, around the outside of the bowl 2-3 times, until dough is cohesive and partially deflated. Transfer to a 1.5lb loaf pan (9.75″×6″×2.75″ or equivalent) that has been heavily coated with Baker’s Joy or another quality non-stick baking spray. Cover and allow to rise for about 15 minutes, then remove cover and allow to rise for an additional 15 minutes, until dough crowns the pan by about 1 inch. Optionally, spray the top with a light mist of water for a browner crust.

Bake in an oven preheated to 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for another 22 minutes, or until the bread passes the knock test. Remove from bread pan and allow to cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes or preferably 1 hour before cutting with a bread knife to serve.

Notes

This recipe is adapted from one my step-mother makes somewhat regularly. Much like her version, this bread is great sliced fresh, but even better toasted, and perfect for a grilled cheese sandwich.

It is possible to split the portion of dough produced by the quantities listed above into two parts and bake each in a medium sized oven safe bowl, but I don’t do that because I have no such bowls and I like having an excuse to use my bread pan. If you are going to go this route, it may be necessary to modify cooking times/temperatures slightly (450 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes then 375 degrees Fahrenheit for another 15 minutes might not be a bad place to start).

It is also possible to use lots of butter to coat the sides of your cooking vessel. There is nothing wrong with this approach, and it may even produce a slightly richer crust, but I like to play it safe against pan-stickage with some serious hydroxylated soy lecithin non-stick goodness.

Finally, it’s perfectly fine to dial up/down the amount of whole wheat flour to suit your personal taste. I find 2.5 cups of bread flour and 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour also works very well, but you could potentially get away with no whole wheat flour, or even all whole wheat flour (especially if you add some vital wheat gluten), if you’re into that kind of thing.

This is a great everyday bread, especially during a pandemic—it’s easy to throw together in the morning and pairs well with whatever else you might be having. The deliciousness to effort ratio is very high with this one. Find out for yourself.