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3 years ago. If was one of those moments when I desperately felt the need to have a warm, familiar atmosphere around me. With a tidy house, flowers on the table, hot soups and apple cakes on the windowsill. You know, those little things that warm the heart and take you back in time, back to authentic values and flavours. But there was something missing...

Then, a very distant memory emerged from the mists of time: my grandmother with a floury apron and the smell of freshly baked bread made with wheat from the mill. A second later, I was looking for the best recipe for home-made bread. And I found THE RECIPE. It was a video from The New York Times where Mark Bittman presented the recipe for “No-knead bread” from the Sullivan Street Bakery.

On that day my way of thinking about bread changed completely. I had found the slow traditional ways adapted to the hectic rhythm of the world we live in.

I rushed into the kitchen, took a bowl and a spoon and I mixed flour, salt, water and a pinch of yeast. After a minute, I put everything in the fridge and waited impatiently and curiously until the following day, leaving all the effort to be carried out by time and a pinch of yeast. The day after, in the kitchen there was the smell of the best bread I had ever made, with a thick, crunchy crust and alveolate crumbs, so rustic, natural and appetizing...

Now everything was perfect. From that day on, I kept on making it and talking about it, changing it and distributing it. Then, as I discovered how versatile this mix was, I began to use it to prepare pizza, Turkish pida, crescente bread from the Bologna area cooked in a frying pan and a number of other things.

A world opened up to me, in a minute.

Ingredients

00 flour: 500 g

Water: 340 ml

Fresh brewer's yeast: 5 g (1 g if freeze-dried)

Salt: 2 teaspoons

Preparation 

In a bowl (preferably one with a lid), mix the flour with the salt. Pour the yeast in the water and then pour it on the flour. Mix 5-6 times with a spoon until well blended, but do not knead.

Close the container with the lid and put the bowl in the fridge (not at room temperature) for 12-24 hours.

Then place the dough on a worktop generously dusted with flour. Flour your hands and flatten the dough to form a rectangle. 

Fold the right side of the rectangle towards the centre and then place the left side on top of it. 

Turn the dough by 90 degrees and repeat the folds, as shown in the photos. Sprinkle a clean cloth generously with flour. Take the dough and turn it over so that the folds are side down. 

Sprinkle flour over the loaf as well and close the cloth, leaving the loaf to rest for 1/2 - 1 hour at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 250°C with the pot and its lid inside it. 

Take off the lid and use a cloth to flip the loaf on your hand so that now the part with the folds is facing up. Place it in the pot and then close it with the lid. 

Cook for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and keep on cooking for another 15 minutes.  Take out the loaf and let it cool on a rack. You can use a pan of about 24 cm in diameter made with cast iron, steel or pyrex. 

If you do not have a lid with a knob resistant to temperatures above 250°C, you can unscrew the knob and close the hole with a ball of aluminium foil.

Ana Maria Ciolacu

I'm 28, I live in Bologna and I take care of running Just Love Cookin'. :)

I discovered I was really into cooking as a child and whatever I made seemed like a big adventure. And little has changed since then. My adventure continued by going around Europe and "absorbing" the gastronomic culture of all the countries I lived in. I stopped in various countries for long periods of time, including France and Spain, though the undisputed capital of my heart will always be Turkey, where I lived for 5 years in Istanbul. The projects I worked on had nothing to do with cooking, but when I lived in these places I learnt about traditional techniques and recipes from neighbours and friends by stealing little secrets here and there, trying everything, from high-end restaurants to street food and thereby establishing a very close relationship with the culture of these countries.

My second passion, which is intertwined with my first one, is food photography. Even if I didn't have the technical expertise, I was really willing to learn and little by little I discovered my own personal style. I wanted to add depth to the photos of my dishes. Every photo needed to tell a story. Now I'm the happy owner of a Canon 5D Mark II, 3 fantastic lenses through which life looks more beautiful, a softbox and a continuous light reflector, though I use it very rarely (I prefer natural light and never use the flash).

I started my blog in Romanian and English. After living in Italy, where I decided to stop, for 5 years I also created the Italian version. I prefer quality over quantity and post something when I feel I've done a good job. Now I have even a youTube channel! Come and take a look!