No Knead Bread

I'm not very versed in the world of bread baking.  I don't have bread flour.  I have a baking stone that we have only used once for making pizza with pre-made Trader Joe's pizza dough and it was far less than impressive.  I bought a jar of active dry yeast awhile back ago but I forgot to put it in the fridge so I think it all went dead.  The only breads I have really made are pretzel rolls and raisin swirl bread.  I tried to make brioche one time and for whatever reason it was a sticky, clumpy disaster.  Breads seems like a whole other planet to me in terms baking.  I kinda have to agree with my boyfriend who says, "Why make it when you can buy it at the store for $1.99?"

I've known about the No Knead Bread recipe for a long time but never tried to make it.  The bread requires 14 to 20 hours to rise (overnight), and I usually get my cravings to bake in the mornings.  So anytime I actually wanted to make this bread, I'd forget about it by the time it was reasonable to do so. 

After my friend, Marilyn, said she had a lot of success with the recipe, I set my mind to try it too.  I'm glad I did.  It was fantastic.  The bread's crust was amazing and the inside was chewy and perfect for slathering butter on.  We kept the leftovers in a plastic resealable bag and I thought that it kept pretty well.

The recipe calls for instant yeast.  I only keep active dry yeast packets in my house (buying the jar was an overestimation of how often I thought I would make pretzel buns and/or raisin swirl bread), and I read that other people still got great bread with it.  So, I warmed up the 1 5/8 cups of water that the recipe calls for and proofed the yeast first, then added it to the flour and salt.  I think I've read that others who also used active dry yeast skipped proofing and still got good results.

I'm interested in experimenting more with this recipe.  I'd like to try a finer ground cornmeal (I used polenta which is probably too coarse), or maybe wheat bran.  I might even invest in some bread flour.

I guess the bread planet isn't that far off after all.