Healthy Homemade Kneadless Breadmaking

by Nadine Sigle

 
I love the smell and flavor of homemade bread. With the holidays here, our time is filled with so many family activities we often feel we don’t have time to make homemade bread. Following is a kneadless bread recipe which is tasty and only takes a few minutes a day to make. And with this bread recipe, you get all of the advantages of homemade bread – the smell, the taste, the healthfulness, and the money savings.

Another reason I really enjoy this recipe, is that I can mix up a batch of dough and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Then I can take out a portion of the dough, shape it, let it rise, bake it and have fresh bread ready for any meal. It’s that simple!!

Kneadless Wheat Bread – Yields 3 one pound loaves
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour – 5 ½ cups (could be white wheat or red wheat) 

All-purpose flour, unbleached – 2 cups 

Granulated yeast – 1 ½ tablespoons (2 packets) 

Table salt – 2 teaspoons 

Granulated sugar – 2 tablespoons 

Vital wheat gluten – ¼ cup

Lukewarm water – 4 cups

1. Measure the dry ingredients: Gently scoop the flour into a dry ingredient measuring cup and then sweep the top level with a knife or spatula. Whisk together the flours, yeast, salt, sugar and vital wheat gluten in a 5 quart bowl, or preferably, a reseal able, lidded plastic food container or a food-grade bucket (a five quart ice cream bucket works great). 

 

2. Mix with water – kneading is unnecessary. Add luke-warm water and stir into the dry ingredients. You will want to use a heavy long handled spoon to do this. Mix until all the flour is worked in. This could also be done with a food processor or a heavy duty mixer with a paddle. You are finished when everything is uniformly moist.

3. Allow to rise. Cover the dough with the lid (not airtight). If you are using a bowl, cover loosely with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or at least flatten on top), approximately 2 hours. After rising, refrigerate the lidded (not airtight) container and use over the next 14 days.

4. On baking day, I spray my hands with cooking spray or lightly oil them with vegetable oil and then pinch off one third of the dough and quickly form into a loaf or a ball. This only takes 20 to 30 seconds. You don’t want to work the dough so much that all of the gas escapes. It will be very sticky. Place the ball on a sheet of parchment paper or the loaf in an oiled or sprayed loaf pan. Then I lightly spray the top of the dough to keep from drying out while rising. Allow to rise until doubled in size. (About 1 to 2 hours depending upon the temperature of the room.)

5. Thirty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450°F. If you desire a crisper, thicker crust, bake the bread on a pizza stone. Preheat the pizza stone 30 minutes and when ready to bake slide the parchment paper onto the pizza stone. If you want a softer, more tender crust, bake either in a Dutch over which has been preheated for 30 minutes or bake on the preheated pizza stone and cover with an inverted metal bowl. If using the Dutch oven, place the dough while still on the parchment paper into the preheated Dutch oven and cover with the lid. Some Dutch ovens have plastic knobs. Make sure it can withstand the high temperature or remove the knob and plug the whole with a small piece of aluminum foil. If baking in a loaf pan simply place in the oven on the rack.

6. Bake the bread for 30 minutes. Check the internal temperature of the bread with a thermometer. It should read between 195° to 200°F. If the internal temperature is lower than this bake a few minutes longer until it reaches temperature. If it is above the 195° to 200°F then reduce the baking time a few minutes. 

7. Allow the bread to completely cool on a wire rack for best flavor, texture and slicing.

8. Store the remaining dough in the refrigerator in your lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next 14 days. The longer the dough is stored in the refrigerator it begins to ferment and take on sourdough characteristics.

Happy Holidays to all and thanks for allowing me to share this method of bread making with you. If you have questions or comments don’t hesitate to post. 

Nadine Sigle is a Family Consumer Science Extension Agent with the Post Rock Extension District in Kansas.