No-knead bread recipe for busy families

Get rolling in the dough using this amazing no-knead recipe that bakes up four 1-pound loaves of tasty artisan bread for around $2. I’m not kidding. Less than a dollar a loaf. It’s not only easy on your budget, but also quick and effortless to prepare, as authors Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois describe in their best-selling book that is creating a buzz far and wide, “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” (St. Martin’s Press).

When I stopped by Zoe’s kitchen, her active sons were shaping dough for their own pizzas. “Inventing nutritious recipes and eating together are important to our family,” says Zoe. “When kids get involved in cooking and baking healthy foods, they’ll eat what they make.”

For the master bread recipe, let kids loose to measure flour, salt, water and yeast in a bucket. They’ll love stirring up the concoction with a wooden spoon and their hands. Let it rise, and you’re ready to bake bread for up to two weeks. You can even adapt the recipe for sweet breads, flatbreads and pizza. Give it a try, and discover the fun of rolling in the dough.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 3 cups lukewarm water

• 1  1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast

• 1  1/2 tablespoons kosher salt

• 6  1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Mix together ingredients in a 5-quart food-grade lidded bucket or container. Cover loosely, let rise at room temperature for about two hours, then refrigerate for up to two weeks. Bake some of the dough now, if you wish.

To prepare a loaf, cut off a grapefruit-size piece of dough, sprinkle flour on it and briefly shape it into a ball with flour-covered hands. Allow to rest for 40 minutes on a pizza peel or wooden board covered with parchment paper or sprinkled with cornmeal.

Twenty minutes before baking, preheat oven to 450 F and set a baking stone on a rack in the center of the oven and an empty broiler tray on the lower rack. When ready to bake, dust the top of the loaf with flour. An adult should make a 1/4 -inch-deep crisscross slash on top with a sharp knife and slide the dough onto the baking stone. Pour a cup of hot water into broiler pan before closing the oven door.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until crust is browned. Let cool. Slice and serve.

Extra resource: Watch Jeff and Zoe prepare the complete recipe online at www.artisanbreadinfive.com. Click on “Video.”