2 Hour No Knead White Bread

🍯 Why This Recipe Works

1. Minimal ingredients and effort. While you don't need much to make bread at home, you can feel even better knowing that you don't need as much time and labor to bring the taste of freshly baked bread into your home.
2. Two ways to bake it. You can make this bread in a loaf pan for sliced sandwich bread, or you can bake it on a baking sheet for a round artisan-looking loaf.
3. It's nice and chewy. From the chewy crust to the soft, chewy centers, this bread is my favorite for making on soup nights. It holds up well to being dunked in chowders and broths.

🧾 Substitutions

Flour. You can use all-purpose flour or bread flour for this recipe. Please note that if using bread flour, you may need additional water to hydrate the dough, so if you find your dough is dry, add in a tablespoon of warm water at a time until the consistency is correct.

🔪 Instructions

Step 1: Add the flour, yeast, and salt to a large mixing bowl.

Step 2: Whisk well to combine.

Step 3: Add in your warm water.

Step 4: Stir until it's well combined. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 10 minutes.

Step 5: Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of flour onto a clean work surface.

Step 6: Dump your dough onto the floured surface.

Step 7: Press the dough out with your hands.

Step 8: Fold the dough over about 10 times.

Step 9: Press it flat between each fold.

Step 10: Gather the dough and shape it into a round ball.

Step 11: Place onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet or in a greased loaf pan. Let rest uncovered for 1 hour.

Step 12: When the dough has doubled in size, preheat the oven to 425F.

Step 13: Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the top is golden in color and the internal temperature reaches 195-200F.

Step 14: Let the bread rest for at least 1 hour before slicing.

Serve and enjoy!

📖 Different Baking Styles

Round loaf or bread pan

You can prepare this loaf as a round loaf on a baking sheet or in a bread loaf pan. If using a bread loaf pan, just follow the steps as directed and instead of gathering the dough into ball, shape it into a log and place it into a greased 8x4 bread loaf pan. The remaining steps are the same (same rise time, bake time, etc).

🍴Recipe Tips

🍞How do I know if my bread is done?

The internal temperature of the bread should be around 190-205F. Stick close to the specific bread recipe you're using, as the baker often gives a temperature to check for. Underbaking your bread by even 10 degrees can cause different results than expected.

🍞Why is my bread tearing?

If your dough tears when being baked, it's because the elasticity in the gluten didn't get to spring to life as it should have. This could be from the dough drying out during the proofing.

It's basically like the bread dough created a crust before it baked, so the dough didn't have anywhere to expand as it was being baked and created its own exit paths. This is why some people will cut a line down their loaf before baking, to encourage the tearing to happen only where they want it to.

If your bread tears or falls apart as it's being sliced, This is most likely because the bread was under-kneaded and the gluten wasn't properly developed. Make sure it's properly kneaded before proofing.

Another cause is under proofing. While most recipes will say to rise for 1 hour or until doubled. Many people choose the 1 hour wait time and will bake the bread before it has actually doubled.

Please wait until the bread has risen to double its original size, and just use the "listed time" as a guestimate, as it can be faster or longer depending on many different factors.

🍞Why is my bread dense in the center?

Did you slice it while the loaf was still warm? Did it reach the proper temperature, or was it underbaked? Are you sure you kneaded it well enough? All of these things can cause your loaf to be dense in the middle.

🥖 How Long to Proof Dough

The time needed to proof dough truly varies from person to person. It depends upon the weather, climate, wind drafts, temperature of ingredients, age of the yeast, and more.

On average, it can take anywhere between 1 hour to 3 hours for the dough to proof properly, but some people can see it happen in as little as 30 minutes.

The goal is not waiting to a specific time but instead looking for a specific response from the dough. We want the dough to be doubled in size, and whether that takes one hour or more, we shouldn't jump straight into the next step before completing this one.

You should expect that it will take about 1 hour for your dough to double in size and proof, but here are some tips for getting it there.

• Cover the bowl of dough with greased plastic wrap. This helps to prevent the dough from drying out and helps to trap the heat. The cooking spray on the plastic wrap helps to prevent it from sticking to the dough.
• Store it in a warm location. I like to preheat my oven to 200 degrees F for 2 minutes and then turn it off. Then I place the bowl in the oven and let it rise until doubled.

Other locations to place your dough include:

• Inside your closed microwave
• Inside a closed oven with just the oven light turned on
• On a hot and sunny day, your kitchen's countertop can work well too

👩🏻‍🍳 Storage

You can keep your homemade bread in an airtight container at room temperature for about 3-5 days. It will not last as long as storebought bread because there are no preservatives so it's best eaten quickly or frozen for later.

You can wrap the bread well in plastic wrap and store it in an airtight container for up to 3 months in the freezer. I do not recommend placing homemade bread in the fridge as it can cause the bread to dry out.