No kneading. No dough hook. Just a bottle of beer and a few pantry ingredients and your home will be suffused in the comforting aroma of freshly baked bread.
Wait, beer? Yes! It’s the secret ingredient in this crusty loaf which takes just 10 minutes of active cooking time to make. Half Baked Harvest‘s Tieghan Gerard shared this recipe with us from her new cookbook, Half Baked Harvest Super Simple. She uses the recipe often, sometimes employing it as the dough for a stunning Rosemary Potato and Wild Mushroom Burrata Pizza—currently the dish up next on our what-to-make-for-weekend-lunch list.
The dough is soft and bubbly. Once it rises, you need only transfer it to a well-floured board and do your best to shape it into a round. We suggest using a bench scraper to lift the edges of the dough over the center before flipping it over onto a piece of parchment paper for baking. A preheated Dutch oven in a hot oven does the rest.
No-Knead Bread and Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more as needed (see Note)
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 (12-ounce) beer
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, yeast, and salt. Add the beer and olive oil and mix with a wooden spoon until combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature until doubled in size, 1 to 2 hours.
TO BAKE AS BREAD
- When ready to bake, place a 6-quart cast-iron Dutch oven or heavy pot on a rack positioned in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 450˚F. Once it reaches temperature, let the Dutch oven warm for 30 minutes.
- Turn the dough out onto a generously floured work surface. Using your hands, form the dough into a ball and place it on a large piece of parchment paper.
- Carefully remove the Dutch oven from the oven and place the dough with the parchment paper in the center of it. Transfer the pot back to the oven, cover, and bake for 30 minutes. Carefully remove the lid and continue cooking until the bread is a deep golden brown, about 15 minutes more.
- Carefully lift the bread out of the pot and place it on a rack to cool completely, about 2 hours. (Don't slice the bread right out of the oven—you want to let it continue to cook as it cools.)
TO USE AS PIZZA DOUGH
- Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and divide it into 2 equal pieces. Use half of the dough as directed in any given pizza recipe and save the remaining dough, wrapped in plastic wrap, for another use.
Notes
© 2019 by Tieghan Gerard
Excerpted from Half Baked Harvest Super Simple
38 comments
What parchment paper did you use? Most brands I’ve used are oven safe up to 415 degrees…this is baked at 450.
We have baked it using several different parchment brands. The paper may brown at the edges while in the oven. Cook’s Illustrated makes some suggestions in this post: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/5858-can-you-heat-parchment-paper-higher-than-manufacturers-recommend. Some parchment paper brands can work in ovens up to 500 degrees.
Should the beer be flat and or warm or does it matter
It should be bubbly and straight of the can. The temperature doesn’t matter. Good luck!
Should the beer be flat and warm to work
Awesome! It was really very easy to and also tasty. Thanks a lot for sharing this bread recipe.
Interesting use of beer. I hate to use it for a bread recipe but I suppose I will give this recipe a try.
When preheating the Dutch oven do I do it with the lid on
Good question! When we made the bread, we preheated it with the lid on. Obviously, be careful when you remove it! The lid will be very hot.
Information was useful to me, I searched a lot about it
Do the math. How could 12 oz of beer and 3 cups of flour (~13.5 oz) make a pound of dough?
Does the beer have to be at room temperate?
[…] you are the adventurour homemade pizza dough maker, here my favourite pizza dough recipe: https://blog.williams-sonoma.com/the-easiest-bread-recipe/ I have yet to try the recipe to make bread but so far I’ve only used it […]
[…] you are the adventurour homemade pizza dough maker, here my favourite pizza dough recipe: https://blog.williams-sonoma.com/the-easiest-bread-recipe/ I have yet to try the recipe to make bread but so far I’ve only used it […]
This recipe sounds delicious…I have bread flour, could I use this vs reg. Flour….
Thanks
Agreed!
If I wanted to make rolls with the dough (12 round rolls), how long should I bake them for? Thanks!
I found no errors in the recipe. I made this today and added fresh chopped rosemary. It was excellent.
Looks so good! Excited to test out different beers.
Does the beer have to be at room temperature?
Jennifer, when i make my pizza doughs i use water thats around 98-100 so I’m assuming that yes it is best to use room temp.
Can you let the dough rise overnight? Would you let it rise in the refrigerator?
Probably, but you’d need to take it out to finish rising possibly for as much as two hours on the day you choose to bake it.
If I don’t have a Dutch oven for baking, can I just put my crock pot in the oven?
I don’t think that would be a good idea – you need something heat proof to 450. I don’t know that the crock pot bowl can take that.
I used a cast iron pan and covered with foil. Worked just as well!
It could be possible prepare it with whole grain flour or spelt? Thank you
Just made this! It came out gorgeous!
I think we know who drank the rest of the 6-pack of beer!
What can you use instead of beer??
What about a non-alcohol “beer” like O’Doul’s (sp?)…?
What can you use other than beer?
So there’s some typos…I’m still going to make this bread, as soon I as get some beer. Thanks for sharing.
I can’t sat oil? What is a substitute?
What are the errors?
Did you read the instructions?
Agreed! It is laughable!
This recipe is riddled with errors. Is anyone proofreading?