No-Knead Bread, Revisited

In 2006, it changed the face of baking. Now, J. Kenji López-Alt takes a fresh look at Jim Lahey and Mark Bittman’s revolutionary recipe.

I remember where I was when the baking revolution began. Do you? It was November 2006, and I was a test cook at Cook’s Illustrated magazine in Brookline, Mass., when I walked over to see what my colleagues were gawking at. It was a loaf of bread that my fellow test cook David Pazmiño had just transferred to a cooling rack. I remember the loud snaps and pops coming from the bread as it cooled, the glossy crust crackling. He cut off a slice, revealing an open, airy hole structure with a moist, custard crumb. It was extraordinary. It was Jim Lahey and Mark Bittman’s no-knead bread, then recently published in The New York Times.