easy crunchy crust bread

Homemade chewy, moist bread with a crunchy crust is something I attempted for years. I’ve tried a variety of bread bibles, baking stones, clay cloches, brotforms, multiple gadgets and techniques to make the kind of bread I was aiming for. Turns out, the very easiest technique I tried ended up creating exactly the kind of bread I wanted.

Here’s the skinny:

Step 1 – Mix the dough

The dough has only four ingredients: 3 cups bread flour, 1.5 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. yeast (I use Saf Instant), and 1.5 cups water.

Put the ingredients, in order, in a 2- or 4-quart mixing bowl. Mix ’em together.

The dough will look shaggy when completely mixed.

Step 2 – Let the dough do its thing, overnight recommended

Put a cover on the bowl, or plastic wrap if the bowl doesn’t come with a cover.

Let the dough rest in the bowl at room temperature 8-24 hours. I usually make the dough the night before and bake the next day. Sometimes the next morning, sometimes the next night. Either way works fine.

Step 3 – Preheat a dutch oven with cover 30 minutes at 475F

I have a 5-quart dutch oven that works perfectly.

Step 4 – Form your loaf

Your dough should look very sticky and shiny at this point – not shaggy at all.

Sprinkle a couple tablespoons of bread flour over the dough. I tap the bowl lightly while turning it, slightly tipped, to distribute the flour to the edges. Once the flour is at the edges, I take a rubber spatula and start to ease it down the sides of the dough. Then I tip and turn the bowl to loosen the dough while the flour slides down its sides.

After most of the outside of the dough is covered in flour, I swirl the bowl lightly to form a flour-covered ball. It’s easier than it sounds. The main idea here is to form the dough into a ball WITHOUT KNEADING. There is NO KNEADING required. Easy peasy.