Bread recipe

This summer, when Colin was home, Meg came up to visit him and brought a bread recipe with her. She gave it to me and I've used it a number of times. The bread is very good, so I thought I would pass along the recipe. Here it is:

No Knead Bread

3 cups bread flour
2 tsp. fine salt
1 tsp. instant yeast
1 ½ cups water at room temperature
Coarse wheat bran

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT
A heavy casserole
A coarse dish towel

Using your fingers or a sturdy wooden spoon, thoroughly combine the first three ingrediaents ina 2-quart bowl. Pour in water. Again, with fingers or a spoon, work the dry ingredients and water together for about 30 seconds until a rough wet dough has formed and all the flour has been absorbed.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise at warm room temperature for about 18 hours. Then, heavily flour your work surface. With plastic dough scraper or your hands, invert the bowl over the floured surface as you pull out the dough, which will spread into an amoebiform blob. Dust it with flour and stretch it into a rough square, about 10 inches per side. Fold the square in thirds. It will now be a puffy strip about 4 inches wide and 10 inches long. Cover lightly and let rest for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, spread the dish towel on a flat surface. Rub a generous amount of flour into one half of the towel and sprinkle several Ts of bran over the flour. This is to prevent the dough from sticking to the towel.

Fold the dough in thirds again, beginning at one of the short ends of the strip. The resulting package of dough should be nearly the shape of a cube.

Delicately brush off excess flour from the dough, and with your palms, very gently stretch the top layer part way down over the seams visible on two sides of the dough. With both hands, gently lift the dough into the middle of the half dish towel you’ve just prepared. Sprinkle the top to the dough with a little four and bran. Cover with the other half of the towel or with plastic wrap. Let rise for 2 hours.

Halfway thorough, put the casserole and its cover in the oven and turn the temperature to its highest setting, probably 500 F or 550 F.

When another hour has passed, open the oven and remove the casserole cover. Slide your hand under the towel where the loaf is resting, lift up the towel and loaf, bring them over to the casserole, and , steadying the loaf with your other hand, invert it into the casserole. Pull off the towel. Shake the casserole sideways if the loaf needs to be neatened. Cover the casserole, close the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Uncover the casserole and bake for another 20 to 30 minutes (personally, I have found 10 to 15 minutes to be plenty of time) until the loaf is a handsome dark brown. Remove the loaf and let it cool on a rack until it is barely warm to the touch.