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Wholemeal No Knead Bread

Written by: Georgina Ingham | Posted: 24-08-2015

As regular readers will know I have a slight obsession with bread. I love the baking of it and the eating of it, which is not all that great for the waistline but hey, everything in moderation. Right?

Who can resist the smell of baking bread? Not me, that’s for sure. It’s such a welcoming aroma.

I’m not a total ‘no-knead’ convert, as I do love baking more labour intensive loaves using traditional kneading and several rises, but when life gets in the way no-knead is the way to go.

The joy of this bread is that it requires no kneading, uses no special ingredients, equipment or techniques and it takes very little effort — only time. You will need to be patient as a fair number of hours are needed create the bread, but much of this is unattended waiting, a slow fermentation of the dough that results in a perfect loaf.

Generally I prefer a wholemeal/malted grain loaf as I like the nuttier flavour. White flour is made from the bulk of the wheat kernel, the starchy endosperm. Whole wheat flour takes more from the plant. In addition to the endosperm, it retains the bran, which is the fibrous outer husk of the kernel and the germ which contains the oil in the grain.

Here I went for 25% wholemeal flour and 75% white flour, but feel free to adapt and experiment but keep in mind that the more wholemeal flour you add the denser and less elastic your dough will be.

The slow rise lends a slightly sweet, yeasty flavour to the dough, comparable almost to using a sourdough or poolish.

bread2

The crusty exterior complements the chewy, moist center, riddled so delightfully with holes that you’ll wonder why you didn’t make this sooner.

Wholesome No Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey - My Bread

Ingredients

300g bread flour

100g wholemeal flour

8g salt

7g sachet fast acting yeast

300ml cool water

wheatbran, cornmeal or flour for dusting

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, stir together the flours, salt and yeast.

2. Add the water and mix until you have a wet, sticky dough (about 30 seconds).

3. Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature until the surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough has more than doubled in size (about 12-18 hours)

4. When the first rise is complete, generously dust your work surface with flour.

5. Scrape the dough out of the bowl in one piece.

6. Using floured hands or a bowl scraper, lift the edges of the dough in toward the centre, nudge and tuck in the edges of the dough to make it oblong/round as desired.

7. Place a tea towel on your work surface and generously dust it with wheat bran, cornmeal or flour.

8. Gently place the dough on the towel, seam side down.

9. If the dough is tacky, dust the top lightly with flour.

10. Fold the ends of the tea towel loosely over the dough to cover it and place it in a warm, draft free spot to rise for 1-2 hours.

11, The dough is ready when it is almost doubled in size. If you gently poke it with your finger it should hold the impression, if it springs back let it rise for another 15 minutes.

12. If you gently poke it with your finger it should hold the impression, if it springs back let it rise for another 15 minutes.

13. Half an hour before the end of the second rise, preheat your oven to 220c with a rack positioned in the lower third, place a covered pot on the rack (such as a cast iron casserole or large enamel roaster).

14. Using oven gloves carefully remove the preheated pot from the oven and uncover it.

15. Unfold the tea towel and quickly but gently invert the dough into the pot, seam side up.

16. Cover the pot and bake for 30 minutes.

17. Remove the lid and continue to bake until the bread is a deep chestnut colour (15-30 minutes).

18. Carefully remove the bread from the pot and leave on a rack to cool thoroughly.

Details

Prep time: 21 hour