The best no-knead bread you'll ever make

Have I told you about my favourite purchase on our Whitianga holiday? It’s this community cookbook I picked up at the local museum. Called The Health Factory Cook’s Book, it appears to have been put together by a group of locally-minded ageing hippies some ten years ago. It’s absolutely my kind of recipe book - more lentil recipes than you can shake a stick at, and advice on how to clean everything you own with baking soda.

There are five separate recipes for no-knead bread in this book. I hadn’t even heard of no-knead bread until last year when I read about it on the Budget Bytes website. However, the recipe given to me by the Whitianga hippies beats the Budget Bytes recipe hands down. Really, you have to try it. The crust is so good! And it’s very dense, fabulous with winter soups or toasted with Vegemite.

The original recipe is from Pamela Lagan of Cheviot.

No-Knead Bread, SCP styles 
Makes two large loaves
1.350 kg of flour - I usually use a combination of flours.
The most delicious combo has been:
350g white flour
200g quinoa flour
200g rye flour
200g buckwheat flour
400g wholemeal flour
Incidentally, if you can, you should use stoneground flour as the grinding method leaves the wheatgerm whole, meaning that the flour is more nutritious. I learnt this by reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

1tbsp salt
25g yeast (fresh or dried) - I usually use fresh compressed yeast
1tbsp raw sugar
900-1210ml warm water
I also sometimes add 3/4 cup of wheatbran to the mix.

Switch on the oven and leave it to heat up while you’re preparing the ingredients. Tuck the bread tins into the oven to heat up.

Mix flours and salt together in a large bowl. Mix the yeast and sugar in a small bowl with 150ml of warm water and leave in a warm place for about 10 minutes or until the mixture is frothy and you can see that your yeast is alive. Pour the yeasty liquid into the flour and gradually add the rest of the water. Mix well with a large solid spoon - in the past I have broken a wooden spoon in this mixture. It will be very sticky, not at all like a standard bread dough.

Turn off the oven.

Divide the dough into the two greased and warmed bread tins. Put the tins back in the oven and leave to rise for about 20 minutes or until the loaves have just reached the top of the pans. Slash the loaves down the middle with a very sharp knife or razor.

Bake at 200C for 35 to 40 minutes, allow to cool a bit and then tip out.

Remember: don’t cut your bread until it’s cooled a little! Warm bread rules but if you cut to early you risk a Gummy Crumb. And nobody likes a Gummy Crumb.

Let me know if you've tried it out and how it went for you!