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I heard about this on Splendid Table, and it sounded so easy I had to give it a try. (Recipe here.) For the minimal amount of effort involved, the results are fantastic. The flavor really does improved over the course of storage time, and I've been adding a couple of dashes of malt vinegar to boost the faux sourdough flavor.

I originally saw the recipe in an article by Mark Bittman in the New York Times and have made the bread half a dozen times at least. It always comes out great - crunchy crust and great elastic crumb on the inside. I use oat bran rather than flour or cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking to the tea towel and use the ceramic insert from my crock pot to bake the bread. Yum!

Recipe: No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

jannice -- that's a different recipe. this one uses a lot more yeast and it seems like most people didn't think it worked as well as the lahey one. i tried it once and wasn't excited by the results. personally, i prefer the cook's illustrated tweak that came out in the jan 08 issue (the one with beer). unfortunately i don't have a link for that one.

Click here for my thoughts on the Hertzberg bread recipe and also for a conversation between me, Dr. Hertzberg, and a few of my blog readers. I agree that it gets much better with age...

Dominic
the zen kitchen

Where has this method been hiding lo these many years?

i have made several loaves of each recipe and confess to being disappointed with the flavor each time, even with the artisan bread that i aged for over a week in the fridge. it was better than the first one but it didn't rock my world. plus i realized that just i love to knead bread, and i hate to deal with broiler pans full of water, red hot pizza stones and cast iron dutch ovens. so i'm back to my basic loaf, and very easy and delicious it is, too. {plus it doesn't get stale immediately, a big plus when you live alone and need sandwiches for lunch every day.}

Thanks, Dominic - the information and conversation on Zen Kitchen's site were rather eye-opening. Always on the search for perfection.