Hands Off Bread

If you live in the Anchorage, Alaska area, you may be familiar with Europa Bakery's amazing rustic bread offerings. You may also be (painfully) aware of the highish prices. This recipe, from the How to Cook Everything iPad app, mimics the yeasty, crusty, and chewy goodness of a high-end loaf of bread, but without any kneading. Yup, no kneading. It does take some foresight to make this bread, and it's a little messy. The original recipe in no way prepared me for how much flour needed to be added after the original mix. But it was worth it. Plus, you can make a fun heart-shaped loaf of bread like me. OK, heart-ish shaped. The recipe name in the app is Jim Lahey's No-Work Bread, but that name conjures up a different Jim Lahey, the drunken trailer park manager in Trailer Park Boys. So I retooled the name a bit.

Hands Off Bread

Ingredients
4 c. bread flour, plus
1/2 t. yeast
2 t. salt
2 c. water, about 70 degrees F

Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Add the water and stir until blended (it's going to be goopy, don't worry). Cover the bowl with saran wrap and let rest for 12-18 hours (see what I mean about foresight?).

Flour a work surface. Give the dough a stir with your hands then plop it out onto the prepared surface. It's going to be pretty sloppy still. Sprinkle liberally with flour and work it in with your hands until the dough can kind of hold a round shape. I promise, this is nothing like kneading and goes really fast. Cover the dough loosely with saran wrap and let rest 15 minutes.

Using more flour to keep the dough from sticking, quickly shape it into a ball. Coat a cotton, non-terry cloth dish towel with corn meal and plunk the dough on it. Sprinkle more flour on the top to keep it from sticking and cover with another towel. Let rise another 2 hours, until it's roughly doubled in size.

At least 30 minutes before you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 450 and place a covered baking dish (mine was heart-shaped) in the oven. When the dough has risen, pull the dish out of the oven, place the dough in it, and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove the cover, reduce temperature to 425 and cook another 15 minutes.