Good Eating Tuesday: No-Knead Rosemary Garlic Bread

This recipe for No Knead Rosemary & Garlic Bread is one I found on Pinterest and it makes the most delicious, tender bread! Super easy. Just stir together, let raise, move to a 10" iron skillet, raise 30 minutes more, bake. Eat.

It makes a wide round loaf about 2 1/2 inches high at the middle. (Photo is my own)
I cut it in half, bag the halves separately, then use them one at a time for sandwiches or garlic bread.

I make it by hand, first using a spoon to mix in the first 3 cups of flour, then, working the last cup of flour in with my hands because it's starting to foam into a more solid dough and is past the point of using a spoon. 

I find something satisfying about making bread with my hands.

The original recipe used only water and yeast, but I prefer to add 1 teaspoon of sugar, because it feeds the yeast, which is alive, activating it more quickly, which helps the bread rise a bit faster and produces a more tender, soft bread texture. What's not to like?

You can buy packages fresh Rosemary at the supermarket where they sell other fresh packaged herbs.

If you have a Rosemary shrub outside, this is a great recipe to use it!

No-Knead Rosemary Garlic Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups lukewarm water (105 degrees F)

1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

1 teaspoon white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 1/3 cups all-purpose flour (divided: 1 cup flour set aside to use first, then the 1/3 set aside for hands later or as needed)

2 Tablespoons fresh Rosemary leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried)

2 garlic cloves coarsely minced (or 1 to 2 teaspoons bottled pre-minced garlic)

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

In a large bowl add water, sugar & yeast. Allow to set for 5 minutes to let the yeast work.  (I use the time to snip 2 Tablespoons of fresh Rosemary leaves)

Add 1 cup flour and salt to the yeast water and stir with a wooden spoon until combined. (don't worry about lumps)

Now stir in your minced garlic and Rosemary leaves.

Then add your remaining 3 cups of flour one cup at a time, stirring in completely after each addition.
By the 4th cup, I find the dough clumping too much to stir, so I use my hands to work the flour into the dough. I find that easier. I use a scraper to get all the four off the bowl sides and bottom and get the dough to pick it all up.
 I may use some of that 1/3 cup flour that's still left on my hands to keep the dough from sticking to my hands.
Then, once all the flour is mixed in, I quickly shape it into a round mound on the bottom of the bowl, cover the bowl with plastic and set it in a warm spot to let rise 1 hour.

I use the warm dryer method for raising bread:

 Set dryer to high and run it five minutes while making the bread dough. Turn dryer off and set covered bowl inside warm dryer to rise 1 hour. Works like a charm.

While bread is rising, add 1 Tablespoon olive oil to your 10" iron skillet, then with a napkin or your fingers, brush oil around sides and bottom to coat well.

After 1 hour is up, remove plastic, flour hands and lift the dough out of bowl, transferring it to skillet and shape into a rounded disk in skillet.

Cover with kitchen towel and let stand 30 minutes in skillet on stove top.

Preheat over to 400F when 30 minutes is almost up.

Drizzle remaining olive oil over top and score top with some shallow knife cuts. (for pretty)

Bake 30 to 35 minutes, then remove from oven and turn out on a cooling rack & leave to cool for a few minutes.

You can serve warm right away, or like me, cut in half and store in bread bags in refrigerator to use as needed. (Must be refrigerated to keep well.)

This bread makes lovely grilled cheese or combo meat & cheese sandwiches, grilled meatloaf sandwiches, egg sandwiches or garlic bread and goes well with soup or stew.
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