Nanna's No-Knead Saucepan Bread
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This amazingly simple recipe uses a slow-proving method to make a really fantastic loaf of crusty bread with very little effort… You'll also need a cast-iron saucepan with a lid.
Ingredients
  • 625g of strong white flour
  • 500 ml of lukewarm water
  • 1 tsp of salt
  • 1 tsp of dried yeast
  • vegan margarine for greasing
Instructions
  1. Weigh out the flour into a large bowl. Add the dried yeast and salt.
  2. Pour in the water, and use a silicone spatula or similar to mix thoroughly, until all the flour has been incorporated and you have a wet, sticky dough.
  3. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave at room temperature for about 12 hours (overnight is ideal, or you could put it on first thing in the morning ready to bake in the evening).
  4. Uncover the bowl, use your spatula to scrape the risen dough from the edges of the bowl and fold it over a few times – there’s no need to take it out of the bowl to do this, just give it a bit of a prod about so that the dough goes back down; leave it to prove again for a further 2 hours or so.
  5. Preheat the oven to 250C/Fan 230C (hot!). If your saucepan has a plastic handle to the lid, make sure you unscrew it and put it to one side as it will not withstand the high oven temperature. Grease the inside of your saucepan with a little vegan margarine (oiled and floured works too). Turn the dough over in its bowl a couple more times with your spatula and then scrape it into the saucepan.
  6. Put the lid ON, and place in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Then remove the lid (you’ll see at this point that the bread has risen nicely in the pan) and leave the bread in the oven for a further 15 minutes with the lid OFF.
  7. Remove from the oven and tip out onto a baking tray to cool.
Notes
This also works well with 50:50 mix of white and wholemeal bread flour, but seeded flours don’t seem to do so well with this method.
If you want to use fresh yeast, use a piece the size of a pea and rather than adding it directly to the flour, dissolve it into the water by rubbing it between your finger tips.
Don't forget to unscrew the plastic handle from your saucepan lid!
Recipe by Entering Vegan Territory at http://enteringveganterritory.co.uk/nannas-no-knead-saucepan-bread/