No-Knead Bread with Cold Fermentation

Ingredients prepared: sugar can be omitted, milk can be replaced with water;

Pour all the ingredients into the container;

Stir and mix into a mass using a spatula.

Touch the dough by hand; if it feels sticky, that's fine. Cover it with a lid and ferment at room temperature for 1 hour, then place it in the refrigerator at 4°C to ferment for about 18 hours. About 6 hours into the process, you can take it out to turn and fold it, then continue fermenting in the refrigerator.

Let the dough rise to nearly twice its size, then let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Sprinkle a little flour on the cutting board, invert the dough, fold it, that is, fold the left and right sides toward the center, then fold the top and bottom sides toward the center;

Turn it over, shape it into a round, place it on baking paper, and let it undergo a second fermentation in a warm and humid place; I put it in the oven, spray a little mist of water, set the temperature to 35°C, for 50 minutes;

Place the enamel pot on the lower rack of the oven before baking and bake at the highest temperature of the oven for 30 minutes. Home ovens generally have a maximum temperature of only 230°C, so bake at 230°C; when the dough has doubled in size, sift high-gluten flour on the surface and use a bread scoring knife to cut patterns as you like.

Take out the enamel pot, place the raw bread dough into the pot wrapped in baking paper, cover with the lid. This step should be done quickly, and be careful to avoid burns;

Place the pot containing the raw dough into the lower part of the oven, bake at 230°C with both top and bottom heat for 20 minutes; I used a “Zhu Li Ji” enamel pot, which has a thick body, so there’s no need to worry about the black enamel inside or the yellow outside being damaged or discolored by baking;

After removing the lid, bake with top heat at 200°C and bottom heat at 210°C for 15 minutes; this step can be adjusted based on the actual condition of the oven, the material and thickness of the pot, etc.; I actually used 230°C for the bottom heat, and the bottom of the baked bread got a little burnt, so it is recommended to lower the temperature for baking here.

Immediately take it out of the pot after baking, and it can be eaten when it cools to warm; if you don’t mind it being hot and are eager to eat, you can slice it after letting it cool for a short while. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, it tastes amazing.

No-knead bread fermented at low temperature, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, quite tasty!