100% Whole Grain No-Knead Bread

This is our absolutely delicious, homemade, 100% whole grain, overnight-rise, no-knead bread. I have been working on this recipe for over a month, because I was determined to get a GREAT loaf using only whole grains. And this is it! The crust shatters when you cut into it, the crumb is fluffy and light, and the flavor is nutty and balanced. This bread reinvents what you think you know about the texture and taste of whole grains. Here’s the recipe, which uses Jim Lahey’s famous techniques, if not his ingredients.

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100% Whole Grain No-Knead Bread

Ingredients:

2.5 cups stone-ground whole wheat flour, plus extra for dusting

1 cup old-fashioned oats

1 Tbls. honey

1 Tbls. vital wheat gluten

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. dry active yeast

Pour 2.5 cups cool water in a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast, honey, and salt, and fork-whisk until mixed. Dump in the flour, oats, gluten, and salt, then mix it all up. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise overnight, for about ten hours.

The dough is now very wet and bubbly. Remove the plastic wrap, and sprinkle the top with 3-4 Tbls. of whole wheat flour. Sprinkle some more flour on a cookie sheet, and on your hands. Then, gently pull the dough away from the sides of the bowl. Pinch the center of the dough with both hands and lift it straight up and out of the bowl. 

Drop the dough onto the floured cookie sheet. Roll it briefly on the cookie sheet, until the outside is just dry enough to handle. Then fold the dough into a package: left side folded into the center, then right, then top, then bottom. When you turn it over, you’ll want to see a smooth ball on top, with all four corners tucked underneath.

Drizzle a little EVOO into your mixing bowl, and plop the new loaf in the bottom. Cover again with plastic wrap, and let rise again for 1-2 hours.

Thirty minutes before you’d like to bake, preheat your oven to 450. Place a large dutch oven, with the lid, into the preheated oven, and let it heat up in there for 20 minutes.

Remove the hot dutch oven from the regular oven. Uncover your loaf, dust it with flour, and once again, quickly fold your dough into a snug package, just as described above. Drop it into the hot dutch oven, and use a (serrated) steak knife to slash the top of the dough two or three times, in parallel lines, only about ¼ inch deep each time.

Replace the hot lid on the hot dutch oven, and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove the dutch oven lid, and bake for 20-25 minutes more. By the end of cooking, the interior of the loaf will be around 200 degrees, and the outside will be dark and crusty.

Congrats, you’re done! Cool your loaf on a wire rack, admire it, and eat it!