There is nothing better than fresh baked bread right out of the oven! Add butter and I’m ready to stuff my face and then take a nap.
I have a bread machine and I use it to bake bread about 2-3 times a week, but for some reason that bread (which has butter and milk and brown sugar and honey) doesn’t taste nearly as good as this quick and easy round loaf that only has 3 ingredients. How can that be?? Actually, I don’t know and I really don’t care. I just know it’s good. This bread is so easy that The Hubster and I made it for Christmas for our neighbors. Add cellophane and a bow and it’s a beautiful gift.
- 3 ingredients
- 2 hours from start to finish
- no kneading
So here’s what you do. You add flour, salt and yeast into a bowl and mix it up. Then pour your water in the bowl. Mix it up so that there’s no dry ingredients left – check the bottom of the bowl … sometimes that flour can be sneaky. It will look like Bisquick biscuit dough in consistency … and it will be sticky. That’s OK too. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave it on the counter to rise for 1 hour.
You’ll notice when you add the plastic wrap that it will steam up a bit … that’s OK too. It’s supposed to do that.
After your 1 hour timer goes off, you’ll want to put your empty, covered dutch oven in your cold oven and turn it on to 450 degrees.
Now flour your countertop and scrape out your bread dough onto the floured surface. Sprinkle a bit more flour on top. Using a dough scraper or a wide spatula, fold the dough in half 10-12 times adding more flour as necessary.
Now, add parchment paper to a clean bowl. Then scoop the dough and put it on the parchment paper in the bowl and cover the bowl with a towel. Set your timer for 15 minutes.
When the timer goes off, using oven mitts, take the HOT covered dutch oven out and remove the lid. Using the oven mitts, grab the parchment paper corners and transfer the parchment paper and dough into the HOT dutch oven. Using oven mitts, place the lid back on the HOT dutch oven and put it back in the heated oven.
CAUTION: I keep stressing HOT because you WILL end up forgetting at some point regardless of how much you remind yourself if you don’t get in the habit right from the start of just never taking those oven mitts off until the bread is finished. Just ask The Hubster — he has a lid-knob-sized burn on his fingers from where he took off the mitts because the parchment paper is slippery and without thinking, he just grabbed the lid. Ouchie! That dutch oven has been sitting for 30 minutes or more in a 450 degree oven … the dutch oven AND the lid are extremely hot.
Let the bread bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, using oven mitts, take the lid off and let the bread brown up for another 5-10 minutes. Then remove from the oven and using oven mitts, grab the parchment paper and place the bread on a cooling rack. Throw the parchment paper away. Once the bread has cooled, enjoy!!
A quick note: if you want to eat the bread hot out of the oven — which is such a temptation — I recommend ripping pieces off instead of cutting it. If you try to saw through a hot loaf of bread, you’ll end up with compressed (i.e. smushed) bread. It will still taste good, but it won’t have nearly as many nooks & crannies for the butter to run into.
3 Ingredient No-Knead Bread - Ready in 2 Hours
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups hot tap water up to 130° F
- extra flour for shaping
Instructions
- Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl, stir to combine.
- Stir in water and mix well until there's no dry flour left and it’s well combined.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.
- After the timer has gone off, place your dutch oven with it's lid on into your cold oven. Then heat the oven to 450° F.
- After the dough has rested for the hour, place it on a well-floured surface and sprinkle with a little flour. Using a scraper fold dough over 10-12 times & shape into a rough ball.
- Place in a parchment paper-lined bowl (not wax paper) and cover with a towel. Let stand on counter top for 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes (or once oven is preheated), remove Dutch oven from the oven. Still using oven mitts, lift the parchment paper and dough from the bowl and place gently into the hot pot. (parchment paper goes in the pot too)
- Cover with lid and bake for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, remove lid. Return, uncovered, to oven and bake 5-10 more minutes to brown up the crust.
I’ve made this before and the first time it turned out perfectly. It was absolutely delicious. But the next two times my bread turned out flat and dense. More like focaccia. Do you know what I might’ve done wrong?