5-Ingredient No Knead Sandwich Bread

Hi everyone, I'm chef Gemma Stafford and this week on Bigger Bolder Baking we are making this incredible 5-ingredient no-knead sandwich bread. Here's how to do it. So it is back to school time, Georgie is heading into a new class so I thought it's a great time to learn how to make a no-knead sandwich bread to make his lunches on. And this is such an easy recipe, it's great to know how to make this at home because it only involves 5 ingredients, no funny stuff at all, it's really simple. So here I have a nice big bowl and into it I'm going to put in my flour, now let me tell you about the flour. It's a mix of flours for this recipe, I have some strong bread flour, this has higher protein, it's good with yeast, and it holds structure. I'm also mixing with that some all-purpose flour, lower protein, but it gives you, between the two you get a really lovely chew on your bread. I don't want a loose crumb for a sandwich bread, that's not what you want, you want it to be kind of like close and tight, so the mix of these two flours, that's what you get, so it's a really great combo for this bread. So those go in there. A little bit of salt, always salt when it comes to your bread, very important. And now for our yeast, if you know me by now you know I always use instant yeast which is way less work and it goes straight into the flour so I love that. However, you know I grew up in Ireland and we only had active dry yeast which had to be sponged into liquid, so you can do that if you want, you're just going to need a little bit more yeast, a teaspoon and a quarter. So as you can see I put yeast on one side of the bowl and then salt on the other, this is just a good practice when it comes to bread, if you put salt directly on top of yeast it will kill it, so what I like to do is put it on one side, give it a mixy mixy mix, to the majority of the flour, on the other side mix in the salt, mixy mix, and then you can mix it all together. I get questions, Gemma you said don't mix them all together, just give them a mix individually and then you can combine them and it's much better. There we go, no problem there at all. Now for our liquid, here I have some lukewarm water, now this is really important because yeast loves to be warm and it needs liquid, so what I like to do is you can do this on the stove top or you can do it in the microwave, warm it up a little bit until it's blood temperature. Now how do you know what the temperature of your blood is? Very simple, pop your finger in there, if you can't feel the water around your finger that means it's a similar temperature to your blood which is perfect for bread making, yeast loves that. So pour that in here, so just nice kind of room temperature, blood temperature is exactly what we're going for. And then all you have to do is give this a mix together by hand. So now you might be asking the question, what is a no knead dough? And I have so many no knead doughs, I love this technique and I'll tell you what it does. You do not need a kitchen mixer, you mix it all by hand and rather than doing a whole pile of work, you mix your ingredients in a bowl, let it all come together and then you ferment it overnight on the countertop. What happens is you don't need to put it on a machine and work and build that gluten, over time as it's sitting here, the protein and the gluten in your flour will develop over the hours that it sits here. What else will develop is flavor and also bubbles and those bubbles give you lovely texture. So this is such a fantastic way to make bread, I have so many no knead doughs on my website, brioche, pizza, ciabatta, focaccia, I mean it's just, it is such a fantastic simple way to make amazing bread in 5 minutes each day. There you go, so once your dough comes together it will be saggy, these are high hydration doughs, this is perfect, all our flour is hydrated. So guess what, we just did the hardest part of this recipe which is mixing your dough by hand. Now all we have to do is cover it up, I found really inexpensive shower caps that you can get at drugstores do the perfect job, so cover it up and here's what we're gonna do. Let it sit out at room temperature for a minimum of 12 hours for a maximum of 18 hours, I like to push it to that 18 hours because with more time becomes better flavor and better texture and just a lovely loaf of bread at the end. So you make this the day before, the next day your dough is ready to go, could not be simpler. So for the sake of time here I have this lovely dough that I fermented last night, I do this on a regular basis, I whip up dough in my jammies late at night and then it's ready to be baked off the next day, it's so simple. So look at this, do you see those lovely gluten strands? Those are what developed over time, you know we couldn't do that on a machine to get that lovely structure. Also when you make this you're going to notice it smells a little bit boozy, I get lots of messages saying my dough smells like it's bad, it's sour, it smells like beer, like what do I do with it? Like that's what you want, that's perfect. So this is absolutely lovely, here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to flour my surface a little bit, I'm going to turn out this dough, now I'm just going to knock out any air that's in there. Like I said we want a tight crumb on this bread, we don't want big bubbles, we want it to be just like what they call in Ireland a sliced pan, which is just like a big loaf of bread that you buy in the supermarket and it's already sliced. Okie dokie, here's what we're going to do, I have our dough here, all the air is gone, just you can do this by hand, you can roll it a little bit, to around 8 inches by 12 inches, we just want to make a little rectangle, don't have to be too fussy about this, ok? There we go, just like that. Now here's what we're going to do, a little letter fold. Now I remember years ago when I'd read recipes and people were like, do a letter fold and then turn it this way, a 90 degree angle and then do this, I used to freak out, I was like I can't do that. It's very simple, all we have to do is break it down. Here's a rectangle, looks like a piece of paper. Letter fold, just like this, a third like that, and then a third like that. Letter fold, done. Turn it over just like this, I like to give it a little kind of a round on the edges, just like that. Now here, I have a pan, that I put a generous, I'd say, generous tablespoon of olive oil in there, to grease it, I'm gonna lay my dough right in there, just like that, lovely. Cover it up with our shower cap yet again, here's what we're going to do now, it needs to proof. Now this does take a little bit of time for this bread, it takes roughly around an hour and a half minimum, to up to two hours, the time does vary, I've made this bread a lot, sometimes it's ready in 90 minutes, sometimes it takes the full two hours, I'm gonna show you what to look for to be able to know when it's ready. Right now I'm gonna set it over to the side again in a nice warm place, let it grow, let it develop, and then it'll be ready to be baked off. So my bread today took almost two hours to proof, it's a little bit cooler in my house today, but this is looking good, so as you can see, the dough has doubled in size, so number one, that's what we're going for, if it hasn't done that, give it a little bit longer. Number two, how you can tell if it's proofed and ready to go is poke the dough gently with your finger, if the indentation of your finger stays in the dough, that means it's proofed and ready to go into the oven. If your dough springs back, then it's not ready and it needs more time, this is a really great way to tell when it's ready to go into the oven. The last thing I want to do is just score it, so I'm going to take a little blade, I dusted it with a little bit of flour, and I'm going to slice it just right down the middle. Okay, lovely, now my oven is preheated already, it's nice and hot, you want to get this straight into the oven now. So bake your bread in a really hot oven, 450 degrees Fahrenheit, 225 degrees Celsius, for roughly 35-40 minutes, until it's lovely golden brown. Our oven is pinged and our bread is done. Look at that, it's gorgeous! Look at that beautiful golden brown crust and it smells amazing. Okay, I waited long enough, I'm going to have to cut into this loaf. Just hear that crispy, crunchy crust. Absolutely lovely, and the steam coming off this bread. This bread is so flavorful, it is crispy on the outside, it is soft and spongy in the middle, it is perfect for a toasted sandwich, PB&J, toast by itself in the morning, whatever it is, make this part of your regular routine, you will not regret it. If you like no-knead bread, then you are in the right place, stick around, I've got hours of more bread content for you to check out, and I'll see you back here again really soon.