Recipe: Jackie Olden's Grandma's Easy No Knead Peasant Bread (1986)

GRANDMA'S EASY NO KNEAD PEASANT BREAD

"You will love making this bread and everyone will want your recipe."

2 cups lukewarm water
1 package dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt (I used 1 1/2 teaspoons)
4 cups bread flour (if you like, use all-purpose flour)
1 tablespoon cornmeal
Melted butter

In a large bowl, combine the water, yeast, sugar and salt. Stir until dissolved. Stir in bread flour. Turn the dough out onto a floured plate. Clean the bowl and grease with butter. Return the dough to bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes or until double in bulk.

Grease a baking sheet and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Flour your hands and divide the dough into 2 parts, shaping each into an oblong loaf, but do not knead. (Remove the dough from the bowl slowly and lightly. Place on a floured surface, cut in half and place each half lightly on cornmeal-coated baking sheet. Leave room for spreading. With floured hands, gently shape into two long loaves, pushing in and up on the sides to give them little extra lift. - Betsy) Let the loaves rise another 45 minutes until almost doubled.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Brush the tops of the loaves with melted butter and bake 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 375 degrees F and bake 20 minutes more.

While the loaves are still hot, brush with more butter.

Serve with your favorite jelly. Yum!

Makes 2 loaves
Source: Can We Cook by Jackie Olden, 1986

---

Notes from Betsy at Recipelink:
This makes a very loose/slack dough. The loaves are moist with a tender crumb. This is how mine turned out:

---

FRENCH BREAD VARIATION (JUNE 8, 2009):
I made this recipe again, this time using bread flour, a little less water (a couple of tablespoons less) and baking the loaves in a French bread pan. (I used active dry yeast, not rapid rise, each time.) The dough was much easier to handle this time. In the first stirring of ingredients the dough was fairly stiff but still could be mixed with a wooden spoon. After rising the dough was slack but workable and could be shaped.

For anyone that hasn't tried making homemade bread or is waiting until they have a bread machine, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you try this recipe. It's 2 hours start to finish with only a few minutes of that time spent stirring and shaping. If you can't bake it right away you can store the dough in the refrigerator after the first rise and then shape, rise and bake it when you want.

---

LOAF PAN VARIATION (JULY 3, 2009):
I made this recipe again, using bread flour and placing it in a 10x5-inch loaf pan that was coated with cooking spray. I let the loaf rise for 45 minutes after shaping then brushed the top with egg white and sprinkled on sesame seeds. The baking temperatures and time was the same as above. If you try using a 9x5 loaf pan you may need to remove about a cup or so of the dough (you can use it to bake a couple of rolls on the side.) Here are the photos:

---

WHOLE WHEAT VARIATION (AUGUST 24, 2009):
I've continued experimenting with Jackie Olden's Grandma's No Knead Peasant Bread and this is my whole wheat version. For anyone that hasn't tried this recipe yet, it's such an easy way to have a fresh loaf of bread in a few minutes of measuring and mixing and 2 hours total time for rising and baking. If you don't have time to shape and bake the dough you can refrigerate it after the first rise to use later. I like to keep a container of the dough in the refrigerator to pull out and bake as needed, it even makes great pizza and foccacia dough (oil your hands and shape it on oiled parchment paper, top as desired and bake at 500 degrees F). I've kept the dough up to a week in the refrigerator, stirring down when I see it doubled or more in volume - just make sure you cover loosely and use a deep container or divide the dough in half because it can really grow! Here are the photos:

---

RAISIN BREAD VARIATION (OCTOBER 29, 2010):
Jackie's bread has become a staple in our house and my experiments with the recipe continue. This variation makes a dense and delicious raisin bread that's great for toast. The next time I make it I'm going to try 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 2 cups white flour and 3 teaspoons yeast. Here is the photo: