This simple easy bread recipe came about because I was reading about hygge recently. The Danish (which I am…partly) love to keep some soup simmering on the stove, so I thought “what would be better with a nice hot bowl of soup than some freshly baked bread?” This is a free-form loaf baked in a cast-iron enamel Dutch oven, unlike my other no-knead bread that’s baked in a loaf pan. Both are delicious, but my other recipe is more like an English muffin you can slice. Try them both!
Ingredients
1.5 c water (100 F)
2.25 tsp active dry yeast
1.5 tsp table salt
3.25 c all-purpose or bread flour
Preparation
In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and salt in the water, then add in all of the flour. Mix with a wooden spoon until everything is incorporated. Cover and let rise in a warm spot for 2-3 hours (should double in size).
From there you can bake it, or put it in the fridge until you’re ready to bake it. I put mine in the fridge overnight.
Preheat oven to 450 F with an oven-safe cast-iron Dutch oven in there. Once up to temp let the Dutch oven continue to warm up for another 30 minutes.
Layout a sheet of parchment paper, sprinkle some flour on it, then scrape your dough out onto the parchment. You can play with your dough blob to roughly get the shape you want, but I wasn’t picky here.
Get your extremely HOT Dutch oven out of your oven, carefully remove the cover, gather the corners of the parchment and drop the whole thing into the pot. Carefully put the cover back on and bake for 35 min. Remove the cover and bake another 10 min. Let your simple easy bread cool at least 10 minutes before cutting (I waited an hour).