This morning I tried one of the most controversial recipes in the world of artisan baking: The No Knead bread.

This recipe has polarized bread makers since Jim Lahey of Co. Pizza made the recipe famous in 2006 through a feature in the New York Times.  

This bread caused a furor among white thumbs and some even went as far as hitting each other with bread sticks and flattening each other’s noses with rolling pins. It was ugly.

Even the band Bread couldn’t accept the fact that they weren’t kneaded anymore. In fact, sales of their Anthology Greatest Hits that features an extended killer–suicide– version of their overtly depressing song IF, have been reportedly on the decline.

“I don’t knead Bread,” said one of the former fans of the band headed by David Gates.

Some 10,000 “kneaders” in top bakeries have been laid off due to this revolutionary recipe.

“For ages, kneading is as essential as flour in making bread,” complained one ex-kneader.” Now, we’re all unemployed.”

I agree. After trying a couple of traditional breads, this one is really something new.

Obviously, No Knead Bread doesn’t need a lot of things that normal bread does.

Aside from not working on the dough, there’s no need for a bread starter. 

With breads like traditional baguettes, a bread starter made up of a cup of flour, some yeast, and water and fermented overnight is required for that fermented taste in artisanal bread. This starter will later be mixed with the actual baguette dough.

With the No Knead Bread, the whole dough is the starter. Once combined–the flour, salt, yeast and specific amount of water, it is left to ferment for as long as 24 hours.

There is also no need for a steam oven to develop crust. The oven within an oven baking technique does that.

Once this dough doubles in size and bubbles up like a living, breathing goo of microorganisms, it is ready. Shape it into a ball, plop it into a heated Dutch oven and stuff it inside a 450-degree oven. After that, magic. Crusty and chewy bread emerges from the flames. Amazing!

Now, the recipe stated that this No Knead Dough could be used for pizza crusts, baguettes, rolls etc. Just follow the instructions in making the dough mixture and then shape the proofed dough into your desired output.

I am making another batch of this dough for Saturday and I am intending to use it for homemade hamburgers. God knows how much I miss burgers. Yes that one, I still need.

I am also making more mini baguettes for an attempt to make my own Vietnamese Banh Mi. 

Like the burgers, the Banh Mi will be made from scratch– even the mayonnaise, liver pate, pickled carrots and Daikon radish, and the meat filing, which I plan to be braised pork belly in caramel sauce.