Hi Bold Bakers, I’m a huge fan of no-knead doughs.
No knead doughs are doughs that you do not need a mixer to make them and you just mix
them up by hand and let them ferment overnight.
They’re really simple to make, almost like a sourdough in their characteristics.
Now I’ve had a huge demand for showing you how to make a whole wheat no knead dough so
I’m excited to share that recipe with you today, I also what you to stay tuned until
the end of the video where I’m gonna show you even more no knead recipes, but right
now we’re gonna get stuck into our dough.
First things first start out in a nice big bowl, we want it to be big because we’re
gonna ferment our dough in this overnight and it needs room to grow, so a nice big bowl
is what you need.
Into this I’m gonna add in some all purpose white flour, and then our wheat flour.
Now whole grains are really good for us, full of nutrients, fiber all that good stuff, however
I never use 100% whole wheat flour, I always cut it with some white flour.
If you use 100% whole wheat flour your bread will be really heavy.
So If you do a good mix of maybe 2/3s white 1/3 whole wheat, you’ll have a lovely light
fluffy bread.
Now the next ingredient is really important, yeast.
I use instant dried yeast that you can add directly into your dry ingredients.
You can also use an active dried yeast but that has to be activated in water.
I like to use instant because it’s just kind of easier.
So I’m gonna add that into one side of the bowl, and I’m going to add a little bit
of salt on the other side.
And then I just want to give these ingredients a quick mix together.
Lovely so these are our dry ingredients, that’s all you need, so I’m gonna set it over to
the side and we’re going to mix together our wet ingredients.
Into this separate jug I’m going to add in some water.
I like to use room temperature, kind of blood temperature water, so it’s not too cold.
Yeast loves a little bit of warm water.
And then we’re going to add in our sugar which is honey in this case.
Yeast also needs honey to grow and to thrive so we through that in there.
Then just give those a mix together, so the honey’s all in there.
Then we’re gonna take this and add around 2/3s of it into our dough.
Now you don’t add all of your liquid and I’m gonna tell you why, I’m gonna take
a spatula and start mixing it together.
So the reason I don’t add all of my water at once and I do this with all of my bread
doughs, it’s because sometimes you don’t need all of the water or you need a little
bit more, So what you do is pour the majority of it in, give your bread a mix, see then
if you need the extra water, then add it in, the thing about it is once it’s in there
you can’t take it out and we don’t want a soggy dough.
What we’re looking for is our dough to form a ball and clean the bowl.
To hydrate all of the flour but you don’t want a soggy dough because soggy dough can
be quite difficult to work with.
I’m gonna keep on mixing until we form our dough.
Now you might need even more water than what’s mentioned in the recipe that’s totally normal
there’s nothing wrong with that.
Now that’s all of the mixing our dough needs, what we want to do now is cover it with some
cling wrap so the air doesn’t get at it.
Then we’re going to put over a tea towel and keep it nice and warm.
Now what we need to do is wait, it’s that simple nothing else, for around 18-24 hours
and what’s gonna happen during this time is that your dough ferments just like a sourdough
would.
It get’s flavor, texture it get’s a kind of sour saltiness to it and gets really lovely
bubbly and gassy.
So this is a really exciting part it’s actually one of my favorite parts.
So we’re just gonna set this to the side, 18-24 hours no less than that, and then we’re
gonna come back and see how it’s doing.
So here’s a dough I made yesterday, it’s been fermenting for over 20 hours.
I want to show you what you’re looking for with your fermented dough.
So as you can see it doubled if not even more in size, it spread out.
And it’s really bubbly which means it’s full of gas and it’s happy.
You also might notice something, the smell.
Now this is not a bad smell.
It’s actually a really good smell, that smell is flavor and it’s really gonna make
a difference to your bread.
Sometimes people say I made a dough and 2 days later I didn’t use it and it started
to smell, and they think it’s bad so they throw it out.
Well it’s not, that’s just flavor building up so don’t be afraid of that it’s still
perfectly fine.
So next what I’m gonna do is flour my surface and then turn out my dough.
You can see all those bubbles it’s absolutely gorgeous I’m excited about this.
So now what you want to do is knock out the air with your hands.
Now when I was a novice baker I thought that by doing this you were getting rid of all
those lovely bubbles you created and actually the opposite is true.
By knocking out all those gasses you’re actually strengthening the gluten for even
bigger and better bubbles to come back.
So don’t worry about that at all you’re just making it stronger.
So the air is knocked out now we’re just gonna fold it over itself a bit.
Like I said to strengthen it, then we’re just gonna form it into a nice big round ball,
or what we call in the biz a “Boule”.
So where do you go from here.
Well you could like we traditionally do put it on a baking tray cover it in cling wrap
and a tea towel and let it proof, or I’m gonna show you my secret.
Here I have, well it’s a bread basket that’s basically what it is.
I do not buy the proofing baskets which are like $60, this is a bread basket for $1.
You can also use a hanging basket if you’ve seen those before that you get in gardening
stores, or you can just use a bowl like a regular sized bowl.
And I like to proof my bread in these because it gives it a really lovely shape.
So what I do is I have my basket, then I get a nice big tea towel, then I generously dust
it with flour.
You want to do this because this is gonna be on the outside of your bread so be generous.
Then what we’re gonna do is take our dough, like this, seam side facing up, the smooth
side facing down, and then gently place it down into your tea towel.
As you can see the seams are facing me, this is what we want.
Then I’m just going to fold over the tea towel, keep the air off your dough keep it
nice and protected.
So the reason I proof mine in a basket or a bowl at home if you want is because it just
gives it a nice shape, with the tea towel it kind of gets texture off the tea towel
and looks really artisanal so that looks great in the end.
So what we’re gonna do is set him over to the side at room temperature, a little warm
not too hot, for around 45 minutes to an hour, hour 15 maybe even an hour and a half.
What we want it to do is double in size let it get nice and big and then it’s ready
to go into the oven.
So my bread’s been proofing for a little over an hour and I want to give you a sneak
peek I want to show you what to look for when it’s been proofed.
What you do is push down and if it pushes back kind of quickly that means it needs more
time to proof so put it over to the side give it 15 minutes, 20 minutes, what ever it is
longer.
So what you’re really looking for is when you push down and it slowly bounces back that’s
how you know it’s been proofed.
And I’m pushing down and I can see that it’s ready.
Like I said you might need a little bit more time a little bit less time.
In Santa Monica it’s nice and warm here so mine went really fast.
So all we need to do now is turn it onto our baking sheet.
So here I have my baking tray dusted with flour, so what you want to do is just turn
out your dough onto your tray.
Now it’s a nice round size this is a happy dough I can tell.
So before our dough goes into the oven you have to do one last thing which is give it
a beautiful score on top.
So you can do it with a really sharp knife or you can do it with one of these guys I
got online for like $12 I can put a link on my website.
And then just go over it, whatever design you want, nice and fast.
You don’t have to do it too deep.
There we go beautiful.
So now our bread, after all that, is ready to go into the oven.
So bread loves a hot oven.
Bake it off at 400°F or 200°C for roughly 50 to 60 minutes until it’s lovely golden
brown on the outside.
So you’ve probably noticed a few things in my oven, I slid my bread onto a preheated
cast iron tray.
Also below that was a baking tray with boiling water to create steam.
Now I did a video recently on the 7 most common breadmaking mistakes and I covered all of
this.
You definitely want to watch that video before you bake your bread and it just means you’ll
have beautiful, crispy, bubbly bread at the end of it.
I could not be happier with how this turned out, now come here to my because I want you
to see how it turned out.
So as you can see I’ve got a nice golden brown here you definitely want that because
it gives you a crisper crust.
And it also gives you more flavor so get a nice golden brown color.
And then a nice score on top this looks absolutely gorgeous.
So in case you’re wondering if your bread is done or not, what you do is turn it over
and give it a nice tap on the bottom.
If it sounds hollow that means you’re good to go.
I love every process of bread making but I have to say cutting it is probably my favorite
because you never know what you’re gonna get on the inside.
Look at that, oh man.
Beautiful, I am thrilled.
Just like I said to you, no knead doughs are like sourdoughs you get these lovely big bubbles
on the inside.
Also you get that sour smell, also this is full of whole wheat so you can see that, you
can smell it, you’re gonna be able to taste it.
The texture of this is exactly what I was going for this is absolutely gorgeous.
So I’m gonna cut myself a little piece.
Oh my gosh.
This is absolutely gorgeous.
It’s a little bit chewy and the crumb is just beautiful bubbly and airy.
So I fermented this dough for 3 hours but you can put your dough in the fridge for 3
or 4 days and the flavor and texture will just get better and better and much deeper.
I really hope you liked this, go watch my video on the 7 most common breadmaking mistakes
and also I’ve got tons more no knead doughs from cinnamon rolls to brioche to sweet and
savory, you’re not gonna want to miss those so keep on watching.