No fail, no-knead bread recipe

From the New York Times, Wednesday November 8, 2006.

From Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery.

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose (plain) or bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1/4 tspn instant yeast
• 1 and 1/4 tspns salt
• Cornmeal or wheat bran (I didn't have hence didn't use this)

Method

1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 and 5/8 cups of water and stir until blended. Dough will look shaggy and sticky. Cover with gladwrap. Place somewhere warm (at least 21 degrees C) for at least 12 hours, preferably 18.
2. The dough will look bubbly when ready. Put some flour on the kitchen bench and turn dough onto it. Sprinkle with a little more flour and fold onto itself. Cover loosely with gladwrap and let it rest for 15 minutes.
3. Using enough flour to stop the dough sticking to your hands, shape the dough into a ball. Coat a cotton / linen teatowel with flour (or cornmeal / bran) and put dough seam-side down onto the teatowel. Dust with more flour and cover with another teatowel and let rise for about two hours.
4. Half an hour before dough is ready, turn on the oven to 230 degrees C (450 F). Put a heavy covered pot (casserole dish etc - I used a pyrex casserole) in to warm up. Once dough is ready, carefully remove casserole from the oven and turn dough into it. Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes (to brown).

Mine only needed an extra 5 minutes to brown.