Overnight No Knead Artisan Bread

In a microwave safe dish, heat up 4 cups of water for 90 seconds. The water should be warm, not boiling hot. Meanwhile, add 3 cups bread flour and 1 cup all purpose flour to a large mixing bowl. Stir the flours together to incorporate. Then add approximately 3 cups of the warm water and mix into the dough.

You're looking for the 'shaggy' stage of dough where it's coming together in large, rough, clumps. You don't want to see any flour left in the bowl, but if you add too much water, you'll end up with flour soup! The amount of water you need is dependent on many things, including your climate and the temperature and humidity in your house. If you need more water, add it slowly. It's okay if the dough looks a little wet, but aim for shaggy consistency. If your mixture is too wet, simply add more flour.

Once the desired state is achieved, cover with a clean, damp kitchen towel, or with Saran Wrap, and allow to rest for 20 minutes.

After the dough has rested for 20 minutes, sprinkle the sugar, salt, and yeast over the top of the dough. Pull up the sides of dough up and around the sugar/salt/yeast so you are creating a pocket. Then, continue to pull the dough away from the bowl and fold it over until it begins to resist and form a ball. This takes about 2-4 minutes. The goal is to simply incorporate the sugar/salt/yeast.

Cover with the same towel or Saran Wrap and allow to rest for 10 minutes.

After ten minutes, give the dough another round of pulling, folding, and turning until it starts taking the shape of a smoother ball of dough. This should take another 2 minutes. Replace the cover and rest.

It is possible for this to be your last step if you're in a hurry. At this point, we've only spent 30 minutes with our dough with about 5 of those minutes being active. If you have the time, you want to ideally do one final fold as described above one hour later. I find this gives the best result. However, either way, you're going to have a beautiful loaf at the end.

Once you've made your final folding of the bread, set it aside overnight to rise into bubbly perfection.

Place an empty dutch oven pot into the oven with the lid on and preheat to 450 degrees.

In the morning, you will be greeted by a bubbling ocean of risen dough. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and pour out the dough on a clean, lightly floured work surface. Your blob of dough will seem unruly, but you can easily shape your loaf by pulling and stretching all four sides up and over to the other side until you have a sort of square.

Flip your stretched, squared dough so the seams are on the bottom and pat the sides while turning in a circle. This will cause the dough to come together into a ball.

Cover the dough with a new, clean wrap or towel and allow to rest while the oven preheats. This usually takes about 30 minutes. If your oven is alarmingly fast, start by preparing your dough and then preheat.

With your oven preheated and your dough having rested for 30 minutes, remove the dutch oven carefully and place on a heat safe surface and very quickly place your dough in so that the bottom side resting on the counter is now the top. When I'm using a silicon mat as shown in the above picture, I just tip it over and dump it inside. This does not need to be graceful, your bread will survive the trip.

Cover with the lid and pop back into the oven to bake for 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and cook an additional 10 - 15 minutes or until the top is a rich, golden brown. The darker the color, the crunchier the loaf. I prefer mine a little softer, so I usually take it out at the 12 minute mark.

Remove the loaf from the pot and place on a cooling rack. This is the hardest part. Your house smells like amazing fresh baked bread and you can see it in front of you, but you're going to want to wait until it's cooled for at least 10 minutes, ideally until room temperature. But let's be real, no one is waiting that long. The purpose in waiting to let the crumb structure inside set, otherwise you may squish it in slicing it too early.

For the easiest cutting, use a serrated knife. Serve with simple butter if you're a purist, or alongside a bowl of soup. You can also slice and toast with endless breakfast toppings.