Two Easiest Bread Recipes On Earth

1. No-Knead Bread This recipe takes about 1 1/2 hours and any where from 14 to 20 hours rising time. Ingredients: 3 cups all purpose or King Arthur brand bread flour, 1/5/8 cups of water, 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast, 1 1/4 teaspoon salt, and some cornmeal or wheat bran. In a large bowl, mix, flour, yeats and salt. Add in 1 5/8 cups of water and stir until blended. Dough should be shaggy andf sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest from 12 to 18 hours at room temperature or about 70 degrees. The dough will be ready when it is dotted with bubbles. Now lightly flour your work surface and place the dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little morer flour and fold the dough over on itself once or twice. Then cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes. Using just enough flour from sticking to the work surface or your fingers, gently and quickly shape the dough into a ball. Then gently coat a cotton towel,( never terry cloth) with flour, cornmeal or wheat bran. Then put the dough seam side down on the towel. Dust the dough with either more flour, cornmeal or wheat bran, Then cover with another cotton towel and lt it rise for about 2 hours. When its ready, the dough will be about double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with your finger. A half hour beforedough is ready, pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6 to 8 quart heavy covered pot like cast iron, pyrex or ceramic in the oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven. Then slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot seam side up. Shake the pot once or twice if the dough is unevenly distributed. Don't worry since it will even out as it bakes. Cover the pot with a lid, bake 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes until the loaf is golden brown. The cool off the bread on a rack. This recipe will yield about a 1.5 pound loaf. 2. Simple Crusty Bread This recipe takes about 45 minutes and about 3 hours of rising time.It calls for 6.5 cups of unbleached all purpose flour, 4 cups of water, 1 1/2 tablespoons of yeast, 1 1/2 table spoons of kosher salt, and some cornmeal. In a large bowl, mix the yeast and salt into 3 cups of lukewarm water about 100 degrees. Stir in flour, and mix it until there are no dry patches. The dough will then by quite loose. Cover the dough but don't make your cover airtight. Let the dough rise at room temperature at least 2 to 5 hours. Then bake it or keep it refrigerated for as long as two weeks. When you're ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on the dough. Cut off a grapefruit size ppiece with a serrated knife. Turn the dough in your hands to lightly stretch its surface. This will create a rounded top and lumpy bottom. Now put the dowh on a pizza peel or other work surface and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Then let it rest 40 minutes. Repeat this process with the remaining portion of dough and refrigerate it. Now place a broiler pan on the bottom of the oven. Then place a baking stone on the middle rack of the oven and put the oven on 450 degrees. Let the baking stone heat up at 450 for 20 minutes. Dust the dough with flour and slash the top with a serrated knife 3 times. Slide the dough onto the baking stone. The pour 1 cup of hot water into the broiler pan and shut the oven quickly to trap the steam. Bake about 30 minutes or until it is well browned. Then let the loaf cool completely. This recipe will yield about 4 loaves of crusty bread.