No Knead Sandwich Bread

When you’re making all of your bread by hand for a larger family, it can become quite a chore. It can be a huge blessing having those curious hands wanting to help, spending time together, playing together, and creating those memories that a mama hopes will last a lifetime. I would say that’s the case quite often.

However, there are also times when mama’s tired, kids are cranky and trying to sweep the flour onto the floor every chance they get, and you really just need to not need to knead the bread. Did that make sense? 😀 Sometimes you’ve got a teething infant who wants to nurse nonstop, and a child who needs help with their math lesson, and a toddler scaling the walls, and a dog that just won’t stop barking at every. little. thing., and a child pulling on your shirt asking in the cutest possible voice to be read to. Again. You know the bread needs to get baked, or else there won’t be any for the lunch or dinner you have planned … but actually getting the bread made seems like a monumental task.

I feel ya, tired mama. This is what’s working for me, and I hope it’ll work for you, too.

A sandwich bread recipe. That doesn’t need to be kneaded. And you can even make the dough the night before if you want. Or even a couple of days in advance. But you don’t have to. Flexibility is what it’s all about here.

This recipe makes enough for 1 loaf. I usually double it.

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups of bread flour (although all purpose will work fine, too. You can also substitute in some whole wheat flour, or even a cup of rolled oats- I love it that way! Total flexibility here)
• 1 t. salt
• 2 1/4 t. yeast
• 1 2/3 c. warm water

Directions:

• Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in a bowl.
• Add the warm water. Mix it with your hands (you can you a spoon if you really want to). Squish the ingredients around really well with your fingers, making sure that everything is really well combined. The dough will be pretty wet. Not wet enough to pour, but it won’t form a ball or anything.
• Cover and let rise 3 hours.
• Now stick it in the fridge. Three hours minimum. Overnight is better. You can even leave this dough in the fridge up to a week. The flavor will only get better the longer it sits. 
• Pull the dough out of the fridge, and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Pat it flat into a circle, fold in the edges, and the roll up to form a loaf.
• Place the loaf in a well-oiled loaf pan, and then brush the top of the bread with a little more oil.
• Let the dough rise for 2-4 hours. This lets the dough come to room temperature and also do a bit more rising. If that time frame doesn’t work for you, let the dough rise for 2 hours and then stick it back in the fridge for up to 1-3 days. Pull it out a couple of hours before you’re ready to bake, just to let it come back up to room temp.
• Most no-knead bread recipes are cooked in a dutch oven with a lid. We’ll replicate this (sort of) by covering the bread with some aluminum foil, tenting it enough to let the bread poof up about 2 inches.
• Preheat oven to 475 degrees.
• Bake bread 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 10 minutes.
• Remove from pan as soon as possible after baking and let cool on a cooling rack.

Original Recipe

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