High-Altitude No-Knead Artisan Bread

Fresh from the Dutch Oven. Image by author.

My husband’s pre-pandemic 2020 baking goal was to successfully grow and maintain a sourdough starter. He was clearly a trendsetter. By the time the pandemic rolled across the globe in March of that year, many people found themselves at home digging into baking, and his beautiful loaves of sourdough were a treasure I held dear amid so much uncertainty and bad news.

In 2021, neither of us has had the stamina to actively maintain the starter. His two starters still lurk in the back corner of the refrigerator for the day he has time to awaken them like the mad scientist he is. I’ve missed his homemade bread, though, and set out to create a less finicky way to get the tangy notes of sourdough into our lives on a weekly basis.

After lots of internet sleuthing and much practice with bread making techniques, I settled upon my own version of a “no-knead” bread that uses the gift of time, a dough stretch-and-fold process that helps create the texture and holes so loved in artisan bread, and the steamy confines of a Dutch oven to encourage a loaf with enough loft to make me forget I’m baking at a mile above sea level. 

You probably know your way around an artisan bread boule when it comes to ways to enjoy it. I’m a fan of slathering a slice with Irish salted butter and homemade jam or using it as the foundation for my go-to egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches.

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High-Altitude No-Knead Artisan Bread

Makes One Large Boule

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast

• 1 tablespoon raw honey

• 1/2 cup warm water (no warmer than 115 degrees Fahrenheit)

• 3 1/2 cups bread flour + 1/2 cup whole-grain flour (I often use dark rye or kamut.)

• 2 teaspoons table salt

• 1 1/2 cups room temperature water

Directions

1. In a small bowl, add the warm water. Stir in honey until dissolved and then stir in active dry yeast and let sit for about 5 minutes until the yeast mixture is foamy and clearly awake.

2. Then in a large bowl, add the flour/s, salt, room temperature water, and yeast mixture. Stir with a spoon until the dough begins to come together. Then use your hands to squeeze the dough into a sticky, gooey mass.

3. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and then with a tea towel and place in the refrigerator overnight or at least for 12 hours.

4. The next day, remove the bowl from the fridge and leave on the counter for 3 hours until the dough comes to room temperature. Then grab the dough and stretch and fold it over itself between 4-6 times, re-form it into a ball, and place back in the bowl, covering again with plastic wrap and then towel. Do this stretch-and-fold process every 30 minutes over the next 1 1/2 hours (a total of 4 times).

5. Now let the dough rise undisturbed for 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

6. Punch down the dough, reshape into a ball, and place back in the bowl (with same covering) for 60 minutes.

7. During this last rise, place a Dutch oven with lid in the oven on the center rack and turn on oven to heat to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

8. After that 60 minutes passes, gently turn the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper. Score the top of the dough, (I use a straight razor.) and lightly dust with flour.

9. Remove the Dutch oven from the oven and carefully remove the lid. There may be trapped steam in the pot so keep your body safe. Quickly place the parchment-papered dough into the pot and replace the lid. Now return the pot to the oven and lower the oven temperature to 475 degrees Fahrenheit, baking for 25 minutes.

10. Remove the pot lid and continue baking for another 25 minutes.

11. Remove the pot from the oven, pull the bread from the pot using the parchment paper edges and cool for at least 60 minutes before cutting into it for what should be a little piece of bready heaven.