Lazy Overnight Artisanal Bread

Posted on November 06, 2021

This is the simplest version of a nice "Artisanal" style bread. Around 10 in the evening you mix the ingredients and next morning it is ready to bake. Since the steps are reduced, the structure is a bit more dense, and since no sourdough is involved, you might miss the slight tang.

Ingredients (1 loaf of 700g)

• 200g white flour (bread flour if available, at least get unbleached flour)
• 200g whole grain flour
• 6g salt
• 0.5g dry instance yeast (it's roughly ⅛ teaspoon)
• 300g luke-warm water (in the summer use cold water)

Steps

Evening before

Roughly half an hour before going to sleep.

1. In a bowl, mix all dry ingredients, add water. Use a spoon to mix it together so that no dry spots remain
2. Cover with wet tea towel and wait 30 minutes
3. Wet your hands and strech and fold the dough: Grab a side, stretch it upwards, fold it over-itself
4. Cover with wet tea towel
5. Put it in a place that is roughly 20C (In the summer I put it next to a window)
6. Let it slowly rise the whole night

In the morning

1. Carefully put the dough on a lightly floured surface
2. Shape the dough into boule
3. Place dough upside-down in a bowl (put a flour covered tea-towel inside it) or banneton
4. Put dough inside a plastic bag and set is aside at a warm place
5. Heat a cast-iron dutch oven in your oven at max temperature for at least 30 minutes
6. Flip dough onto a baking-paper that roughly matches the size of your dutch oven
7. Take a sharp knife, make an top to bottom incision, slightly off center, at a 45 degree angle
8. Take dutch oven out of the oven, transfer dough
9. Put the cover on it, and put it in the oven
10. Bake for 20min at 240C
11. Remove cover
12. Bake for 25-30min at 210C (pick your crust color)
13. Let the bread cool on a wire-rack
14. Wait 2 hours before cutting into it, the bread is still baking a bit

Creative tips

• Once you get comfortable with the dough and recipe, try it with 310g or 320g water, if the flour can handle it, you'll get juicier bread.
• 60% (or even 70%) whole grain flour is nice, above it requires a lot more skill.
• Try some inclusions, start with 75-100gr. Make sure to presoak the dried fruits, but remove excess moisture before adding to dough. Inclusion suggestions:
  • Seed mix
  • Raisins
  • Olives (cut them in half) & rosemary
  • Figs & walnut
  • Small chunks of dark chocolate

Flour tips

• You can replace white flour with white spelt flour
• You can add 50g of whole grain rye flour and only add 150g of another whole grain flour that does have glutten
• If possible, get flour from a stone-ground mill, it really makes a difference.

Progress of the dough during the recipe

• Mixing and folding:
• Shaping it the next day:
• Fliping it onto a peel to help transfer to the pan:
• Cutting it open after letting it cool down