Artisan No-knead Dutch oven bread

Who doesn't love bread? A beautiful crusty bread with a soup hot off the stove? Toast and jam? How about that bread, hot out of the oven, slathering on butter and having it melting into that soft bread? I'm going to go have a snack now.

This bread is no knead and easy for anyone to make even if you've never made a yeast bread before. I highly recommend using a Kitchen scale to measure out your flour to get a more consistent product. This recipe is great for a straight white bread but it is very easy to make a whole wheat loaf by substituting out half the all purpose/bread flour with whole wheat flour. You can also make this bread vegan by using sugar instead of honey. I'll cover doubling this recipe later on in the post.

Ingredients

1 1/4 tsp dry active yeast

1 tsp honey or sugar

1 1/4 cups warm water

1 tsp salt

3 cups (360 grams) all purpose or bread flour

1 tbsp olive oil

1. In a large mixing bowl add yeast, honey and warm water together. let it sit for 10 minutes to activate the yeast.

2. When the top is creamy and bubbly mix in the salt and then slowly add in flour one cup at a time. If using a stand mixer add the 1st cup then scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

3. Remove dough from bowl and lightly coat with olive oil, place dough into a large clean bowl and cover with a clean dish towel. let it rise for 1 hour until doubled.

4. Gently tip dough out of the bowl onto a well floured surface and start the folding process. Pull the dough on all 4 sides and fold the dough into the center, turning the dough 90° with each fold. Repeat 3-5 sets until dough hold its shape.

5. Place dough into a floured bowl and let it rise for 30 min.

6. Start preheat to 450° immediately, place dutch oven with top on in the oven during the preheat.

7. using parchment paper gently tip dough out of bowl seam side up, place into dutch oven and place back in oven with lid on. Bake for 30 minutes with lid on.

8. remove lid and bake for a further 10 minutes to get nice coloring.

Let your dough rest for a minimum of 30 min before cutting into it.

*If you want to double this recipe, which I often do, it's very easy. First double all your ingredients, rise times do not change. Bake times increase to 40 min with the lid on and 15 min with the lid off.