No knead Artisan Bread - baked in a pot!

I love to bake and I love to eat bread and kneading dough is therapy.. however when I saw this recipe over at Frugal Living Now it went on the list.  It's been on the list for a long time and I took my long weekend to finally get it done.  It's staying on my list now and I see it becoming a Saturday night ritual.  Why Saturday night? Because you need to leave it for 12-18 hours before you can bake it.  

Whatchootalkingaboutliss?  I hear you all exclaim..!

Yes, 12-18 hours proving time.  This gives it the chewy crust, the yeasty-artisan-y- taste - it's totally worth the wait.

Bread doesn't get much easier than this - you can get hooked on this and although there were a few times I thought 'oh this isn't going to look right' - it does, you can't really stuff it up!

Ingredients:

6 cups bread/bakers flour (I think it's worth buying rather than just plain flour - I buy defiance brand)

1/2 tsp dried yeast (yes, I really wrote 1/2 tsp - it's not much right?)

2 1/2 tsp salt flakes

2 2/3 cups of cold water

Method:

Add yeast and salt to the flour in your dutch over or large pot that has a lid (if you don't just make sure you've got some good quality aluminium foil)

Add the water and mix with a spoon until it all comes together.  Place lid or cling-film on top and leave for 12-18 hours.

When you lift the lid it should look like this... cool right?

On a large surface place either a cotton tea-towel or large silpat sheet covered with flour, keep about a cup of flour on standby and flour your hands very well before picking up the dough out of the pot and shape into a ball best you can.

 Place it on your floured tea towel and wrap up and place in a bowl to prove for another 2 hours (I promise it will be worth it!)  1 1/2 hours into the proving place your pot/dutch oven with the lid/alfoil on in an oven and put the temp up to 200 degrees c.

Plop your dough in there at the 2 hour mark.  Put the lid on and into the oven for 45-50 minutes.  Take out, take the lid/foil off and bake for another 10 minutes.

At this point you'll want to dig right in but leave it for another 10 minutes, use a knife to ease the loaf away from the sides of the pot.

Turn pot upside-down and pop out your loaf.   Your house smells amazing and you are so hungry you could eat the whole thing..

 Look at THAT.    Much cheaper than the local baker and much fresher too.  Smother with butter and gorge yourself.  Go on, you waited for it!

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