Making bread from scratch is a labour of love, with most recipes calling for a long list of ingredients and lots of kneading.
But one TikTok content creator has found an alternative that requires neither. Vonnie regularly shares her “great food ideas for families” on her TikTok account, @vonnie_m_andkids.
In one video watched by 9.6 million people, she demonstrated how to make fresh artisan bread. She explained: “If you have an oven in your kitchen, you can make this bread – it’s so simple”.
Vonnie described her doughy creation as “super easy rockstar bread” and pointed out that it contains absolutely no sugar.
A few tools are essential aside from the four ingredients, including a large mixing bowl, tea towel, square cake tine, baking paper, and an oven tray.
No-knead bread recipe
Ingredients
500g or 3.5 cups of plain flour
10g or one teaspoon of salt
7g or half a teaspoon of dry yeast
375g or two cups of warm-hot tap water
Method
First, add the plain flour, salt and yeast to the mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon to combine.
Pour in the water, reserving just a fraction of it to ensure the consistency is right. Mix well to form a dough and then check the texture.
Vonnie said the goal is to make a “nice and sticky” dough with “no areas of dry flour”. She added: “It just looks a fraction wetter than it should be, but that means the dough is absolutely perfect.”
Turning to the camera, she revealed: “I didn’t quite use the full two cups of water.” Cover the bowl of finished dough with a tea towel or cling film and leave it overnight to prove.
Vonnie said she made her dough at 11 pm that evening and left it to rise on the kitchen counter until the morning.
At 7.30 am the next morning, the dough was what she described as “nice and jiggly”, “airy” and “super sticky”, plus it had doubled in size. Vonnie noted that if you don’t want to leave the dough overnight, leave it for a minimum of four hours to rise.
As for how Vonnie achieved an artisan-style loaf, she used an old square cake pan, filled it with water and popped it into the bottom of the oven to create “a steam effect” for the bread.
The next step is to set the oven to 220C and place the oven tray above the square cake tin filled with water, to heat up. Next, cut a sheet of baking paper, place it onto the kitchen work surface and flour it liberally with plain flour.
Now, tip the dough out of the mixing bowl onto the baking paper and flour, then fold over the edges into the middle. The dough should then be divided into two and shaped.
Vonnie said: “This is the fun part” where “you can turn the bread into whatever you want to make it”. She chose to make one straight baguette and another plaited loaf.
Leave the bread for 30 minutes and then slide the baking paper onto the hot oven tray and place into the oven for 35 minutes.
Then, remove the square cake tin filled with water so the outside of the bread crisps up for another five minutes. Take the bread from the oven and let the loaves cool before cutting.
