Nine-Grain Rustic No-Knead Bread

For Christmas, my mom always does the 12 Days of Christmas for each family (Bill, Natalie, Lisa and I). She used to do trinket type stuff but for the past few years she has done food storage. We all LOVE this change. It's something completely useful and something that's hard to spend money on during that time of year. This past Christmas for one of the days each family got nine-grain cereal mix from Honeyville Grains. (Ironically, this is the exact same stuff that Flint and Wayne buy by the ton tote to feed to the chickens and pigs - except theirs is the floor sweepings!) You can cook this stuff as a breakfast cereal - Flint likes it this way, I think it's just okay. On the package it also mentions that you can use it in breads. I decided to try! I loved the results - chewy and delicious! I made the original version of this recipe (rustic no-knead, sans nine-grain) last summer for my family's Memorial Day dutch oven cook-off. We liked it also. Flint actually likes the plain stuff better and I like the nine grain better.

Nine-Grain Rustic No-Knead Bread
Source: Adapted from annastable.blogspot.com

3 cups flour
1 cup nine grain mix
1/4 heaping teaspoon yeast

2 teaspoon salt

Mix together and add 2 cups warm water. Mix until combined well, but no need to knead! 

Put into a clean, greased bowl and cover tight. Let rise for 12-24 hours. 

Flour parchment paper and dump dough out onto floured surface. Flour your hands and flattened dough and then fold edges into center and turn upside down (so the pretty even side is up). 

Cover with bowl or plastic wrap and let rise for 1-2 more hours. 

Place dutch oven in oven and preheat to 500 (yikes!). When dough is ready, spray dutch oven with Pam and carefully transfer loaf into dutch oven (tricky!). 

Bake at 500 with lid on for 30 minutes. Remove lid and lower temp to 375. Bake for ~15 more minutes. Enjoy!

To make the original white bread from Anna's Table, follow the same preparation and baking method. Here are the ingredients:

3 cups flour

1/4 to dry yeast

1 1/2 t salt

1 1/2 c warm water

The blog also suggests using half white/half wheat flour.  Or making it into focaccia bread - add 3 T olive oil to the original recipe and bake as you would a pizza. I haven't tried either of these ideas but both sound good!

* The fact that I like this bread really says something - because I don't like bread! Did you know that about me?!

Here's the nine-grain version.

 

And here's the original.