No-Knead Homemade Crusty Bread

If you're a person who is terrified of making homemade bread, I'm talking to you right now: you CAN make this bread! It's so forgiving, and not messy at all, and it's very simple to do! You have to plan a bit ahead so it has time to rise and such, but it's totally easy other than that! I wish this had been the first bread recipe I tried! I'm serious; you should try this out sometime during the holidays... homemade bread is delicious, it makes the whole house smell lovely, and it's such a fancy addition to a meal!

Recipe adapted from here.
Ingredients: 3 cups all purpose flour 1 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp instant yeast 1 1/2 cups water (lukewarm) Parchment Paper
Directions: 1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and yeast (no need to "proof" the yeast first).  2. Add in water and mix until a shaggy mixture forms. 3. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12-18 hours. 4. Pour dough out of the bowl onto a floured piece of parchment paper, and shape into a ball. Cover the ball with plastic wrap, and sit it on the parchment paper. 5. Place some sort of oven-safe dish with a lid into the oven. This could be a Dutch oven, or a cast iron pot with a lid, stainless steel pot with lid, Pyrex dish with lid, Corningware with lid, etc. I use a 2.5 quart round Corningware dish with a glass lid. It just needs to be somewhere between 2.5 and 7ish quarts. No need to grease or flour the dish at all. 6. Preheat the oven to 450 (letting the empty dish heat up in the oven). While the oven preheats, let the dough just sit on the parchment paper under the plastic wrap. 7. When the oven is preheated, remove the the plastic wrap from the dough. Take the dish out of the oven (be careful and use oven mitts: it will be very, very hot!), and remove the lid. Pick up the parchment paper and drop the dough + parchment paper straight into the dish. Put the lid back on and put it back in the oven. 8. Bake for 30 minutes. 9. Remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes. 10. Remove bread from the dish (again, it'll be very hot, so be careful!) and cool on a wire rack before slicing.

(dry ingredients)

(whisking the dry ingredients)

(adding in water)

(shaggy dough)

(cover and let it sit for 12-18 hours)

(this is what it looks like after sitting overnight)

(dough on floured parchment paper, covered with plastic wrap)

(into the hot dish)

(covered, and into the oven for 30 minutes)

(this is what it looks like after the first 15 minutes, when you remove the lid)

(all done!)

(pulling the loaf out of the pan)

(cooling on a wire rack)

(mmm, crusty bready goodness!)

(delicious!)

Ta-da!

Enjoy!