Introduction: Lazy Man Bread | 4 Ingredients Bread Recipe | No Knead | No Machine
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About: Hey y'all! My name is Lydia and I want to share my passion for cooking/baking with everyone! More About FOOD by Lyds »
Today we are talking bread. In my humble opinion, nothing beats a slice or two of homemade bread that has been slathered in good quality (salted) butter. Unfortunately most of us are always lacking time and the last thing we want to do is wait around to make bread. I have the perfect solution for those of you who want fresh bread and are not willing to compromise on store bought bread. This Lazy Man Bread is really only four ingredients that you should have on hand and you do not have to knead it, thats right, no kneading goes into this bread which may sound controversial but we are going to allow "time" to knead our bread and allow the gluten to form which will result in a soft chewy bread. Did I mention that you don't even need a bread machine to make this bread? Well you don't, however you will need a dutch oven or two cast iron skillets to bake this bread and I'll get into why later on. So if you want to make your own homemade Lazy Man Bread, follow along with me step by step and check out my video. Let's go!
Supplies
Some of the tools I used for this recipe
Step 1: Ingredients
- 3 Cups all-purpose Flour
- 1 ¾ teaspoons Salt
- ½ teaspoon Active Yeast
- 1 ½ Cups room temperature Water
- Cooking Converter (if you need help converting the measurements)
Step 2: Mix Flour, Salt and Yeast
In a big mixing bowl, mix in flour, salt, and yeast until incorporated. When you add your salt and yeast to the flour, add the salt on one side of your bowl and the yeast on the other side of the bowl. Then slowly mix everything together. The reason that you don't want the the salt and yeast touching is because you run the risk of killing the yeast if it touches the salt right away. Once the salt is mixed into the flour that should not be a problem.
Step 3: Add Water and Combine
Next add in the water and mix until your mixture is completely incorporated (you might want to use your hands to bring everything together). I stared using a wooden spoon and then I switched to my hands. You don't want to knead the bread, you just want to use your hands to combine the flour with the water. When everything is combined, the dough should be shaggy and slightly wet.
Step 4: Wait 18 Hours
Cover your bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 18 hours (your house shouldn’t be too hot or too cold). I also placed a clean kitchen towel over the plastic wrap. Since we are not kneading this dough, it does need to wait 18 hours so the gluten can forms.
What I like to do is make this bread a little bit later in the afternoon and then the next day I just bake it. That is why I called this bread lazy man bread, you basically combined all the ingredients and forget about it until the next day when you need to bake it.
Step 5: Preheat Oven
After 17-18 hours, preheat your oven to 450 and make sure you put your Dutch oven with the lid on inside the oven so it heats up with the oven. I allow this to heat for about half and hour to an hour.
Also if you don't have a dutch oven but you have two cast iron skillets, that are the same size, you can place those inside the oven and use those instead of the dutch oven, you would use one of the cast iron skillets as a "lid" and the other to hold/bake the bread. I recommend that you use a dutch oven or cast iron skillets to get a nice crust on the outside and even baking on the inside. I personally never used anything else.
Step 6: How to Know If the Gluten Has Formed
When you take the towel and plastic wrap off of the outside of the bowl which your bread is resting in, the bread should have risen twice or triple in size. The top should be bubbly like my picture and smell yeasty. When you pull the sides away, you should be able to see the gluten strands that have formed underneath.
Step 7: Flour Work Surface
Flour your work surface and hands and place the dough onto the floured work surface.
Step 8: Form the Dough
Form the dough by bringing it together and forming tense on the top to create a round shape. Refer to the video to see the method I used.
Step 9: Add Dough to Dutch Oven
Pull your pot and lid out of the oven once it is heated and sprinkle the bottom with flour and carefully add your bread in. Add the hot lid to the pot. Make sure you are using gloves and work slowly and carefully because you can easily burn yourself.
Step 10: Bake the Bread
Bake your bread in the oven with the lid on for 30 minutes. Take the lid off and bake another 15-20 minutes or until your bread is golden brown. Take it out of your oven.
Step 11: Allow Bread to Cool Completely
Remove your bread from the pot, cool on cooling rack, I used my gloves to pull the bread out of the hot pot (again be careful, I've burned myself before because I was trying to work fast and I wasn't very careful). Once the bread is at room temperature you can cut into.
Step 12: Enjoy!
Enjoy your homemade bread however you like, I slathered butter on mine. The outside is crusty and the inside is soft, pillowy and chewy, way better than anything that you buy at your local grocery store.
Step 13: Video Tutorial
If you want to watch the video tutorial, watch it here!
