Amish Friendship Bread No-Knead Sourdough Bread

Name: Amish Friendship Bread No-Knead Sourdough Bread
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 775 min
Ingredients: 1 cup Amish Friendship Bread starter (active, fed, and bubbly); 1¾ cups water (warm, plus extra as needed); 5 cups flour (plus extra for dusting (bread flour is recommended but all-purpose is fine)); 1 tablespoon salt

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This crusty No-Knead Sourdough Bread is easy to make and uses 1 cup of Amish Friendship Bread starter and NO added yeast. Start early and you can have it on the table by dinner, or prep it a day or two before.

By now, you’ve probably heard everyone raving about Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread, which first appeared en masse at the New York Times Cooking website a couple of years ago. Everyone went nuts, and life was never the same again.

The idea behind no-knead bread is that you don’t need to be an experienced bread maker to create a near-perfect loaf. You don’t need an expensive Kitchen Aid stand mixer with a dough hook. You don’t even need to put any real muscle into it. Mixing everything together takes less than 20 minutes, but you’ll need to be patient and let the dough do its magic over a day or two.

Unlike the original recipe, this recipe uses NO ADDED YEAST but relies on 1 cup of bubbly Amish Friendship Bread starter and a cool, slow rise to make what is arguably one of the best and most satisfying bread recipes you’ll ever try.

Get your starter ready

Like any recipe that relies on a sourdough starter to give the bread rise and loft, you’ll need to have a starter that’s active and bubbly. You’ll want to use your starter when it’s light and almost frothy, with the yeast actively kicking out bubbles and doing its magic.

For Amish Friendship Bread starters, this is generally 3-12 hours after a feeding. Every starter and every kitchen is different, so hopefully you already have some idea of how your starter behaves so you can plan ahead. If you know you want to be baking this bread, be sure to keep your starter well-fed and warm in the days before you want to bake.

Traditional sourdough starters use the “float test” — in a glass of water, drop a teaspoon of your starter and see if it floats. If it floats, you’re good to go. If it sinks, it means your starter either needs to be fed or, if you just fed it, it’s still eating and not releasing a significant amount of CO2, which is what causes your starter to be frothy and bubbly. Make sure you are feeding your starter at the proper ratios — underfed starters are never good candidates for bread recipes that require a rise.

Note: The loaf will have a slightly sweet tang. If you prefer a less sweet bread, reduce or exclude the sugar when you feed your starter for one or two feedings. You can return to regular feedings once you’ve made the bread.

Stay flexible

Using a starter in bread making requires patience and flexibility. This isn’t the case with any of the 200+ sweet loaves or cakes, cookies, scones, or even brownies, which let you bake with 1 cup of Amish Friendship Bread starter anytime during your 10-day cycle. If you’re not using a packet of commercial yeast for an extra boost, you need to make sure your starter is ready to do some serious heavy lifting.

This means that, depending on the temperature of your kitchen and the temperament of your starter, you may have to wait a few hours or a day to find the best time to prepare your dough. Your starter may not be ready on the day you want to bake. That’s okay. Don’t rush this and don’t use a starter that’s “quiet” or flat, as you won’t be happy with the results.

Are you ready to give this recipe a try? Let’s do it!

The No-Knead Method with an Amish Friendship Bread Twist

Combine 1 cup Amish Friendship Bread active starter (or a regular fed sourdough starter that passes the float test) with 1¾ cups warm water, 5 cups flour (I used all-purpose but bread flour is recommended), and 1 tablespoon of salt. Mix with a large wooden spoon until you have a sticky, shaggy dough (you can add up to an extra ¼ cup water but shouldn’t need much more than that, just be patient and keep mixing). You can cheat and use a stand mixer if you have one — use the paddle attachment on medium speed for 30 seconds to a minute.

No Knead Sourdough Amish Friendship Bread

Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm area of your kitchen for 1 hour.

Carefully lift the dough and fold it over on itself a few times. The dough will feel pretty dense. It won’t look very pretty, either. Cover it again, and let it rise for 1 more hour.

Repeat the fold-rise two more times for a total of 3 hours. The dough should have a nice smooth texture after the last fold.

Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for 8 hours or overnight (up to 48 hours). I started making my dough late in the day and ended up putting it in the refrigerator at 11:00 pm at night. My days are upside down with all the craziness that’s going on! What day is it? What time is it? Your guess is as good as mine.

The next morning, I was worried that the dough looked slack and damp. But I waited for 12 hours and then removed it from the fridge. There was condensation on the inside of the plastic wrap, but it didn’t affect my dough at all. In fact, it looked pretty happy and felt smooth and pliant.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and shape into a ball. Leave the dough on the floured surface. Cover and let rest for 1-2 hours.

Or, of using a floured proofing basket or banneton, place the dough ball inside (here’s the one I use). It has a cloth cover that you can use to cover the bread and/or proof the bread in the basket if you want a round shape without the lines. Place the dough in a warm area of your kitchen.

While the dough is resting, prepare a 6- to 8-quart Dutch oven or similar pot. Lightly grease the bottom of dust with fine cornmeal, or trim a piece of parchment paper to fit.

When the dough is ready, carefully turn it upside down onto the parchment paper or onto the bottom of the Dutch oven. I seriously heart those grooves! Cover with the lid and place in a warm area of your kitchen. Let it rise for 3 hours — the dough may not rise much but should relax.

One hour before you’re ready to bake, preheat to 500° F (260° C). Adjust a rack in the middle of your oven (make sure there’s enough room for your Dutch oven to be in the center of your oven).

When you’re ready to bake, dusty to loaf with a thin coat of flour and use a sharp knife, scissors, or a lame (see the green razor-looking things below) to make several ½”-deep slashes on the top of the bread. Cover with the lid and place in the oven.

Reduce the temperature to 450° F (230° C) and bake the bread for 35-45 minutes.

Remove the lid and bake for an additional 5-15 minutes, or until the bread is crusty and a deep, gorgeous golden brown. If you have a digital thermometer, it should read at least 210° F (about 98° C) in the center of the loaf, but if you don’t have a thermometer, don’t worry about it (read below about tapping the bottom of your loaf).

Carefully remove the bread from the oven. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely, at least two hours (yes, really). The bottom of the bread should make a hollow sound when tapped.

Note: I know we all love warm bread hot from the oven, but if you slice into this bread too early, the moisture will escape and the bread will dry out. It may also be gummy inside, which is one of those things you can’t fix once you’ve cut into the loaf. Let your bread finish baking outside the oven by letting it cool on its own. Diehard sourdough bakers sometimes wait up to 8 hours to let the flavors fully develop.

Storing your no-knead bread

Once cool, store the bread in a plastic bag at room temperature or freeze in a Ziploc bag for up to 3 months. You can slice the bread in advance if you only want to remove one slice at a time.

Softening or refreshing your no-knead bread

I’ve included some resources below, but one of the easiest ways to soften hard bread is to quickly spritz or dampen lightly with water (as in run it quickly under the tap) and then bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 350° F (177° C). I have also steamed it in a rice cooker/Instant Pot for 10 minutes and then toasted it in the oven.