suhl awhile ago, and keep forgetting, and I thought that I might as well just post it instead.So, the original no-knead bread calls for gunking up two towels and shuffling a hot dutch oven in and out of the oven a couple of times. Ask me how many times I've injured myself doing that. :) This is much, much simpler.
About 24 hours before you want to have tasty, tasty bread, put 3 cups bread flour into a largeish mixing bowl. Add in 1.25 teaspoons salt and stir it around. Add in 0.25 teaspoons yeast (regular old yeast is fine. You do not need the instant yeast stuff. It's expensive. Go out and get regular old yeast [in bulk, if you can {places like Earthfare usually have bulk yeast} because it's cheaper in bulk than in those little packets or jars, and you'll find yourself making this every couple of days, it's that easy and good.] ) Stir it around. Add in somewhere between 1.5 and 1.75 cups lukewarm water. How much water you need is going to depend on your flour - ours runs dry, so I sometimes need even more. Start with a little and work up; you can't unadd water. :) Start stirring. You want to get all the dry bits mixed in. You'll end up with a shaggy mess that doesn't look like bread dough. As long as all the dry flour is mixed in and the dough isn't liquidy, you're good to go. Cover the mixing bowl with a lid or plate or something - there is no need to waste plastic wrap on this.
Put the mixing bowl on your counter and walk away from it for a day.
About a day later, you'll open up the lid and see that the dough has settled down and is bubbly. About two hours to 2.5 hours before you want bread, clean off a spot on your counter. Flour it up. Dump the dough out of the mixing bowl onto the counter. Cover it up with the mixing bowl. Let it rest for an hour to two hours.
Preheat your oven to 450. Grease a cookie sheet. Remove the mixing bowl. Flour your hands slightly. You can either have one big loaf, or split the dough lump up into 2, 3, or 4. More than 4, and it gets a little awkward to handle, and the crust:bread ratio will be too high. Once your hands are floured, grab the dough, split off however many pieces you want, form the dough balls roughly into circles (don't handle them too much; the bread will settle itself during the cooking) and plop them on the cookie sheet. One the oven is preheated, bake the bread for half an hour to 40 minutes - it depends on how brown you like your bread. Smaller loaves need less time.
Slice. Eat. Marvel at how tasty it is. :) This makes amazing sandwich bread, in small loaves.