Rustic No-Knead Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why is my homemade no-knead bread so dense? ›

Why is my bread dense: Usually bread will be too dense when there is too much flour. Keep in mind this dough will be pretty sticky, do not add more flour than specified. Other factors that come into play are humidity and age of flour. Little yeast, long rise, sticky dough are keys to a good, light loaf.

Editor: Shani, it sounds that your yeast may be too old and expired, or perhaps you're not letting the dough rest adequately after shaping and before baking. Take a look at our no-knead bread step-by-step (with pictures!) and compare your process; you may find a way to tweak it.

Bake covered for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 15 minutes more. Remove the lid and bake for 15 minutes more. You can be extra-sure that the bread is done when an instant-read thermometer inserted in the top or side registers 210°F.

A failure to knead dough (unless you're working with a no-knead recipe) can lead to: Poor gluten development: When you don't knead bread, the gluten won't form properly. This can result in a lack of elasticity and strength, meaning your final product is likely to come out of the oven dense and heavy.

Folding the bread a few times during its long fermentation helps move the yeast to find more food and to introduce a little more oxygen into their environment.

Potato Flakes or Potato Water

Starch helps the dough by trapping the gas from the yeast in the dough and makes the bubbles stronger. This helps the bread to rise and be lighter and fluffier. If you are boiling potatoes, you can use the unsalted water in place of the water in your bread recipe to help out the yeast.

Dense or heavy bread can be caused by not kneading the dough enough, not letting the dough rise enough, or using too much flour. To fix this issue: try kneading the dough for longer or allowing it to rise for a longer period. You can also try adding a little more liquid to the dough or using a higher protein flour.

Another item that helps is parchment paper – it prevents an overly thick crust from forming at the bottom of the bread. If you don't have parchment paper, your bread will still turn out fine, but be aware it will take a little work to cut through the bottom when slicing.

No-Knead bread is justifiably popular due to its ease and good results. In side-by-side tests, we discovered that 90 seconds of extra work is all it takes to transform no-knead bread from good to great. Three simple folds, each taking about 30 seconds, will do the trick.

My dough didn't rise.

No knead dough doesn't rise like standard yeast breads, it only puffs up and gets bubbly. It will be a little bigger after the resting time but don't look for a much larger volume. Your yeast may not be fresh and should not be used past the expiration date.

What are the pros and cons of no-knead bread? ›

Pros: Develops dough without adding additional flour (as with traditional kneading). Effective method, especially with slack doughs such as baguettes. Cons: Takes time and repetitions to master.

Preheat your home oven to 450°F (230°C) with a Dutch oven inside for 30 to 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Bake bread for about 30-33 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Give the top of a loaf a gentle tap; it should sound hollow. Invert the baked loaves onto a wire cooling rack.

What to look for in an over proofed loaf. Similar to the signs of over proofed dough, an over proofed loaf will be very flat, without much rise or retention of shaping. Over proofing destroys the structural integrity of the bread, so loaves that have gone over are unable to hold their shape in the oven.

Look: Your dough should be about double the size it was when it started. If it's in a bowl covered with plastic wrap, then use a marker to trace an outline of the dough on the plastic — the dough is done rising/proofing when it stretches beyond that mark by about double.