Easy four ingredient bread

This super easy, no knead, four ingredient bread takes minimal effort and half the time of sourdough.

Well friends, looks like we might be going into another round of lock downs but since most of the people I know are already working from home I guess it’s not that big of a change for us? This recipe is for all of us that love the idea of bread making at home but maybe not the length of time that a good sourdough loaf takes.

During the 2020 lock downs I did attempt to get on the sourdough bandwagon, I made a starter, fed and cared for it and now it lives in hibernation in my fridge. I have full admiration to all my friends making beautiful crusty loaves with amazing airy holes inside the loaf. I never made it to that stage, lack of attention and focus meant I often had loaves that looked awesome on the outside but were too dense to enjoy on the inside.

We bought a bread maker and enjoy the convenience of dumping everything in and pressing go, but I miss the crunchy crust of an oven baked loaf. So, enter the easy four ingredient, no knead, crusty loaf!

Here’s What You Need:

-1/2tsp Dry Active Yeast
– 2 tsp Kosher Sea Salt
– 1 1/2 cups Warm Water
– 3 1/4 cups All Purpose Flour

Here’s What You Do:

This is an overnight bread – so follow the steps to mix up your dough the night before you want bread, or if you want bread at dinner do the first steps early in the morning.

– Whisk the water, yeast and salt together, then add the flour, stirring with a wooden spoon.
This will be a wet, sticky dough. I use my hands to finish off the mixing – making sure all the flour is incorporated into the dough but you could just keep mixing with the wooden spoon if you don’t want to use your hands.

– Once it has formed into a ball, cover and let it rest in a warm spot in your kitchen. I like to use Beeswax wrap to cover but a damp cloth or plastic wrap will also work.

Let this sit at least 12 hrs, more is better as the longer it has to rise the larger and less dense a loaf of bread you will have.

The Next Day (or at least 12 hours later)

– Preheat to 450F with dutch oven in the oven.

– Put loaf on a piece of parchment paper that has been cut to fit in the dutch oven, form into a ball (it’s usually pretty close to ball shape when it comes out of the bowl anyway but might need a bit a shaping).

– Score the loaf with a sharp knife, I usually just do a couple of straight lines or an X but you can get fancier if you want.

– Leave the loaf to rest while oven heats up, once it is come to temperature, take the dutch oven out put the loaf in it and put it back in the oven.

– Bake with the lid on for 30 minutes.

– After 30 minutes, take the lid off and bake for another 10 minutes.

– Remove from oven and let the bread cool. Ideally the bread should be cooled (maybe just a bit warm) before cutting but I can never wait that long, usually removing from the dutch oven and slicing after half an hour!