No-Knead bread is a godsend on every level: taste, cost, ease. Even the worst loaf I’ve made is amongst the bread I’ve ever tasted, for ~ 15 min of unskilled ef

No-Knead bread is a godsend on every level: taste, cost, ease. Even the worst loaf I’ve made is amongst the bread I’ve ever tasted, for ~ 15 min of unskilled effort. // 430g Flour (3.5 cups) .5 gram of yeast (1/4t) 9g salt (1.5t) 320g ~70° water (~ 1.33 cup) Mix the dry stuff then stir in water. Cover the bowl with a big piece of parchment paper and let it sit on the counter for 12-36 hours. Uncover, dust some flour on the parchment and use it as a work surface. Use a wet spatula to fold it in on itself a few times, and dust flour to keep it from sticking to itself or the paper. Leave it for 2-4 hours, then lower the whole piece of paper into a dutch oven you’ve pre-heated as hot as your oven will go. Bake for 30 min with the cover on, then without for 15-30+ min to crisp the outside. Go darker than you expect. // You’ll find a million variations but same principles: 1) use fermentation to develop both flavor (ala sour dough) and the gluten strands, obviating need to maintain a sourdough starter or to manually knead it 2) bake it in effectively a very small and super hot oven, using the excess moisture in the dough to steam it then, when finished uncovered, cooks the already near-finished bread in a really hot oven to create an ideal crust. This cleverly mimics two features of commercial ovens unavailable to home cooks: steam baking and ultra high heat. The cheapest all purpose white is ideal too, putting a loaf at what, 50 cents? I’ve gleefully lived off these loaves multiple days with some butter, cheese, anchovies etc. Fun side benefit: having a glut of delicious bread got me to start making a lot of crostini (aka tartine, toasts, etc), which are great vehicle to quickly experiment with flavor combinations and techniques. It helped me develop as a cook immensely.