Simple, No Knead Bread – add dried cranberries, and a sweet snack is born! This was an easy break into baking.
During the 2020 quarantine season, I had participated in various virtual activities, including learning to bake from scratch. A plain no-knead bread was the very first item we learned to make during these sessions. Prior to this, I thought any kind of bread had to be kneaded, a laborious process.
5 ingredients in all, it was easy to make, and I’ve since modified it to create variations, including adding cranberries, coming up with ingredients to make it less dense etc. This takes about 10 minutes to prepare, let it rise, and bake!
What was the first thing you learned to bake? Be sure to leave comment + rating on this recipe, and I’ll love to see your creation.
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour plus more for sprinkling – this should be about 1 pound
- 2 teaspoons of salt – depending on your appetite for salt, could be 1/2 teaspoon less
- 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
- 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
- 1/3 cup of dry cranberries – if making sweet bread option
- Equipment needed – Dutch oven or oven-safe baking dish with oven-safe lid; large mixing bowl; parchment paper
Directions
- Make a wet, shaggy dough: Mix flour, salt, yeast, (and cranberries) in a large bowl. Create a well in the center, and add water into the well. Combine with hand until it forms a shaggy dough – you can use a spatula to stir, but I’ve preferred using hands to manage how combined it gets. ADD Cranberries into the mix at this stage to ensure fully incorporated when the dough rises.
- Cover the dough ball and let rise for 6-8 hours. Cover the bowl with either plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel. Set aside in a warm place to rise until doubled in size and bubbly – I have had better success with letting dough rise for at least 7 hours.
- Shape the dough and let rise for another hour. Lightly flour a piece of parchment paper in baking container (Dutch oven or large Baking pan with lid) – I use 2 cake baking pans (see images below). NOTE: ADD Cranberries at this stage as well, if it does not go into Step 1 above.
- Turn the dough out onto the parchment, folding the dough over on itself at least once while you do so. Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise for one more hour.
- Preheat the oven 450F (232C). About 30 minutes before the final hour of bread rising is up.
- Transfer the Dutch oven or Baking pan, which already has the loaf in 4) above, into the preheated oven. You can make a slash or shallow cut in the top of the loaf so the bread can expand while baking – I’ve found that it expands fine on its own
- Cover and bake for 35 minutes. With the lid on.
- Uncover and bake for 10 more minutes. Watch for hot equipment in the oven.
- Cool and slice the bread. Remove from oven, and let cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing. Slice and enjoy!
