Peg Carmen makes multiple loaves of no-knead bread every week to keep up with her family's appetite.

Bill Wippert / Buffalo News

Updated: 02/04/09 07:35 AM

No kneading necessary

Bake the bread of your dreams — crispy crust and chewy inside — without working your fingers to the bones

By Andrew Z. Galarneau /

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Peg Carmen is not your average food nerd. In her former life, the Williamsville mother of two was a four-star pastry chef at Hammersley’s Bistro in Boston. Let us stipulate that Carmen knows baked goods and is to be taken seriously when she exults over how easy it is to make the bread of your dreams.

“It’s literally 15 seconds to mix the ingredients,” she said. “Fifteen to 30 seconds to shape the loaf. Then you put it in the oven.”

Developed by baking evangelist Jim Lahey at Manhattan’s Sullivan Street Bakery, the no-knead bread recipe has won wide acclaim among a narrow slice of home bakers. Popularized by food writer Mark Bittman, it has spread across Internet food enthusiasts faster than wild yeast.

The loaf’s shatteringly crisp crust and airy, chewy honeycombed insides leave children begging for more and bread snobs thinking that it might be worth the bother of baking their own after all.

That’s because, “It’s easy as can be,” Carmen said. “I’ve baked bread professionally, for restaurants. And this bread blows that bread away, with minimal effort.”

The secret is time. After flour, yeast, salt and water are stirred together, the mixture ferments for 12 to 18 hours. The lengthy process allows the flour’s gluten to develop, fills the loaf’s interior with robust bubbles, and leaves the exterior ready to become golden.

After a brief fold and another hour or two of development, the sticky dough is dropped into a hot pot and baked.

Crispy outside, tender filling. The platonic ideal of bread has challenged bakers for centuries, since white flour came into vogue. Today’s bakers sprinkle loaves with water or inject steam into ovens to create that kind of crust.

Lahey’s singular stroke of genius was to bake the dough in a covered pot. The wet dough becomes its own source of steam. After being uncovered following 30 minutes in the oven, the crust browns for another 15 to 30 minutes.

After the loaf makes your house smell delicious, onlookers can enjoy the spectacle of the crust audibly crackling as it cools on the rack.

It is eaten up so quickly that Carmen makes multiple loaves a week.

And, the recipe is forgiving, she said. The version Bittman first published says you should let the dough develop at 70 degrees, but Buffalo-area bakers don’t have to worry about turning up their thermostats, she said.

Some fans of the recipe point out that while Bittman stipulates 1, cups of water, Lahey insists the water should be two tablespoons less.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, Carmen said. “You literally cannot mess it up.”

In fact, one 12-year-old girl we know had no problem putting the dough together.

The dough is adaptable, too, empowering bakers to make specialty loaves infused with fresh herbs and striking flavors like roasted garlic or Kalamata olives. A sprinkle of coarse salt over the dough before it’s covered in the pot will bake crunchy salt into the crust.

Bittman recently revisited no-knead bread with a speedier four-hour version that gets its lift from a bigger dose of yeast. But for the full flavor, you have to let the yeast and flour go the distance.

“The recipe says you can do 12, but I usually let it go 15 to 18 hours,” she said.

After you topple that first crackling, golden loaf out of your pot, you’ll be hooked. That’s even before you notice that the loaf makes staggeringly satisfying bruschetta, brushed with olive oil, rubbed with a garlic clove, and grilled.

Talking while two loaves baked in her oven, Carmen acknowledged that the no-knead bread has risen into a permanent place in her life.

Despite the publicity the procedure has gotten, including the New York Times, “I feel like it’s my bread,” Carmen said with a laugh. “I almost don’t want people to know.”

Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups water

Mix ingredients together in a large bowl until combined into a shaggy dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 12 to 18 hours.

Flour a work surface. Scoop the wet dough, which will be dotted with bubbles, onto the flour. Fold twice, deflating it, and let rest for 15 minutes. Don’t worry if it sticks a bit, just scrape it off.

Sprinkle with flour as needed to handle, and shape dough into a saggy ball. Let rest on floured surface for another 1 to 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 450. Place heavy cast iron, enameled cast iron, Pyrex or similar lidded pot in oven. Heat pot for at least 30 minutes.

Carefully tip dough into hot pot. Sprinkle with salt or seeds as desired, place lid on pot, and return to oven.

After 30 minutes, uncover pot. Bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until browned as desired. Cool on rack.

Don’t be surprised if you start the second loaf before you’ve finished the first.

A few more tips from Peg Carmen: Resist the urge to cut it until completely cool. Store on counter or wrap in paper until cut, and then in plastic. Do not refrigerate. This additive-free bread is best enjoyed within 24 hours.