Introduction

I've loved making homemade yeast bread since my mother first let me "help" prepare her cinnamon buns when I was five. I was lulled by the peaceful, calming nature of the process and amazed and proud of what wondrously good food—fresh, warm, irresistible bread—we could create from such ordinary kitchen supplies. Until I was a teenager, my mother was a stay-at-home mom, so she gave me the gift of many leisurely hours of baking by her side. My memories of those quiet times in our farmhouse kitchen are still vivid.

Once I was grown and had my own home, I carried on my mother's baking traditions, loving the feeling of tranquility and connectedness with my past, and the extraordinary sensory experience and satisfaction of serving my family bread that came straight from our oven. Ironically, after I started writing food articles and cookbooks and honed my baking skills in professional pastry school, it was harder and harder to find the stretches of personal time my mother's old-fashioned yeast recipes required—even though I was usually working in my own kitchen! I realized that for people who spent most of their waking hours away from home, it was much more difficult to squeeze yeast baking into their lives.

Convinced that those who couldn't enjoy baking their own bread were missing out, I began experimenting with the new fast-rising yeasts that were introduced to the market in the 1980s. These launched with the claim that they needed no proofing, and that breads could now be turned out in half the usual time. By accelerating the process with lots of yeast and fast, warm rises, I found that it was indeed possible to have homemade yeast bread on the table in less than two hours—I even created a book full of recipes to prove it! But, sad to say, the hurried rises yielded loaves that were more fluff than flavor, and the off-putting muss and fuss of bread baking still remained.

For nearly two decades I set aside my yearning to make yeast baking more accessible to busy home cooks, spending most of the interim producing stories and recipes on other baking and sweets topics, as well as writing several well-received cookbooks on cookies, chocolate, and, most recently, American desserts. Like so many other people who have to snatch a few minutes here and there for bread baking, I gravitated more and more to quick breads. Yeast baking didn't seem to fit the increasingly hectic pace of life.

Then, early in 2006, the editors at Eating Well asked me to create a yeast bread to go with a soup story. They wanted it easy as well as healthful, they said, because their readers were usually pressed for time. They, their readership, and I were all very pleased with my streamlined, no-knead recipe, although it was completely counter to a growing trend toward more complicated, multi-step artisan-style loaves.

Since the late 1980s, a passionate group of professional artisan bakers and earnest hobbyists had been switching away from the typical American "direct method" formulas (mixing commercial yeast, water, and all the flour together and letting the dough rise) to long, slow rises and more complex and time-consuming sponge and sourdough techniques popular in Europe. (Actually, these methods were also widely used in America until the twentieth century: Nineteenth-century cookbook authors routinely directed their readers to "set a sponge," the day before they made bread. And so many prospectors during the California Gold Rush baked sourdough bread that they came to be called "sourdoughs" themselves.)

As a result of the artisan movement, the quality of bread in this country was getting better and better. But it bothered me that the recipes being published almost invariably demanded multiple days and mixtures and effectively shut out all but the most dedicated home hobbyists from America's bread revolution.

I began thinking about some of the techniques the artisan bakers had newly introduced or rediscovered these past decades, with an eye toward simplifications that would make them more accessible to the legions of busy and inexperienced home cooks. Baker Jim Lahey's clever no-knead, slow-rise French bread recipe in an October 2006 New York Times article by Mark Bittman definitely headed in that direction. It reminded me of a minimal-knead, refrigerator-rise technique that I (and others) had experimented with in the early 1980s, but Lahey's approach was better: It included a much longer countertop rise, which encouraged fuller gluten and flavor development. For his crusty bread he also revived—with fantastic results!—the old custom of baking in a covered Dutch oven, a technique commonplace when most Americans had to cook at a fireplace or campfire, but largely forgotten (except by die-hard campers) today.

I wanted to see if all kinds of quality breads—from the currently popular crusty boules and focaccias to the soft, comfy home-style loaves of my childhood and everything in between—could be adapted to an even less demanding and more flexible no-knead, slow-rise approach. I also wanted to eliminate or minimize hand shaping. This often intimidates the inexperienced baker, plus it involves time, kitchen mess, and cleanup that discourage the busy cook. And I wanted to incorporate a recently developed yeast-retarding, cold-rise technique that arguably delivers the absolute best bread flavor. Finally, I aimed for a process so flexible that those who have to be away from the house for long periods can adjust the timing of all the usual yeast bread stages—mixing and first rise; second rise and shaping; and baking—to fit neatly into their own schedules.

The results of my initial experimentation led to a story and recipes that appeared in the Washington Post in the fall of 2007. Almost immediately, readers blitzed the Post food section staff and me personally with enthusiastic feedback. The story generated lots of Internet buzz, too. Even more amazing than the sheer number of e-mails I received was the wide variety of people who wrote them: novices who had been afraid to try yeast bread before; veteran bakers who liked my easier, fuss-free approach; and time-pressed cooks excited that they could finally fit yeast baking into their schedules again. I even received several e-mails containing traditional recipes, with fervent requests for advice on how to convert them to my no-knead method. (These requests led to the last chapter in this book—Chapter 8, the Kneadlessly Simple Recipe Makeover Guide.)

The enormous positive reaction proved not only the obvious—that people love, love, love good, fresh-from-the-oven yeast bread—but that when provided with a method that truly is simple and convenient, they are eager to join America's bread revolution. Which brings me to Kneadlessly Simple: Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads. As the title indicates, the recipes require no kneading at all! Nor do I merely dodge kneading by manipulating the dough in a mixer or food processor: It actually kneads itself during a long, slow, cool rise.

I'm excited to say that my Kneadlessly Simple recipes eliminate all the obstacles that used to deter folks from enjoying one of life's ultimate pleasures, breathtakingly fresh, wholesome home-baked bread. Anyone—absolutely anyone—can make all sorts of flavorful, fine-textured yeast breads easily, economically, conveniently, without fancy equipment, and, so long as the date on yeast packet indicates it's fresh, very reliably. If you can stir, measure, and read, you can make these breads! Best of all, unlike some of the baked goods produced using shortcut methods of the past, these will routinely have superior texture, aroma, and taste. In fact, unless you are lucky enough to have a world-class bakery right down the street, these may be the best breads you have ever eaten. (And they will certainly be more affordable.)

A Word of Thanks to America's Artisan Bakers

I owe a debt of gratitude to America's artisan bakers: They paved the way and contributed greatly to the knowledge base underpinning the Kneadlessly Simple method. Thanks to them, it's an exciting time to be eating—and making—bread in this country. From the late 1980s on, ground-breaking professional bakers like Craig Ponsford and other members of the Bread Bakers Guild of America have been dedicated to exploring and spreading the word on how to bake the best-tasting, best-quality, most interesting breads. These individuals have so raised the level of American baking that the United States now competes successfully in the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, the world cup of baking: American teams overtook the previously dominant French to win gold medals in 1999 and 2005 and a silver medal in 2002.

Additionally, their enthusiasm and generous sharing of knowledge through workshops and "camps," lectures, and books have energized a whole cadre of sophisticated hobbyists. For home bakers who get hooked on the habit of fresh bread from their oven and want to move beyond the simple, streamlined approach offered in Kneadlessly Simple, the necessary information is readily at hand. Dozens of fine books and Internet bread bakers' chat rooms and Web sites provide sage discussions of bigas, preferments, levains, and such, and abound with photos and descriptions of loaves produced with artisanal attention to detail so aficionados around the country can now obsessively pursue the "ultimate loaf." Particularly if you are interested in learning more about the innovative technique of employing a mash to produce a sweeter-tasting, moister loaf (the method used in my 100 Percent Whole Wheat—Honey Bread), check out Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads.

My hope is that Kneadlessly Simple will entice casual home bakers who lack the time or inclination for such a serious commitment to join today's vibrant bread baking community. As I discovered long ago, the act of gathering together good flour, yeast, and a few other quality ingredients and turning out a simple, honest loaf is profoundly gratifying. It's an experience everyone should have. It doesn't require a fancy kitchen or huge amounts of expertise, and is amazingly easy on the budget. With Kneadlessly Simple, it doesn't even take much effort, because the recipes conveniently build in the time and right conditions for nature (or, more accurately, bread chemistry) to take its course and do the work for you.

Occasionally I'm asked if I ever miss making bread the old-fashioned way. I do sometimes miss the leisurely puttering and smooth, soothing feel of dough in my hands, but I'm happy to give up the kitchen mess. I'm also delighted to be able mix my ingredients in literally five minutes, and then to come back much later with the dough fully kneaded and ready for its second rise. The biggest advantage of the Kneadlessly Simple approach is that it provides me a trouble-free way to give my family the priceless yet inexpensive gift of memorable homemade bread as often as I like. It can enable you to do the same.