Π (PI) Day Whole Wheat Bread (No Knead)

This recipe will produce circular delicious, spongy PI day bread.

You will need:

- 2 cups whole wheat flour

- 1 cup white flour

- 2 teaspoons salt

- 2 cups water

- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast

- 3 teaspoons sugar

- olive oil

Tools needed:

- liquid measure

- 1 cup measure

- a teaspoon

- a tablespoon

- 1 smaller bowl for yeast blooming ( a cereal bowl is fine)

- 1 larger bowl for the bread mixing itself.

- 2-3 glass or ceramic bowls or pie tins to cook the bread in.

No kneading is required.

The warm water will be to bloom the yeast.

If you're like me you've always wondered what a good temperature is for warm water. If your finger can't stay in it, it's far too hot.

If you're looking for more specifics: boil water in a kettle, add about 1.5 cups of lukewarm tap water, and about 0.5 cups of the boiled water.

Add 3.14 rounded teaspoons of white sugar to the warm water.

Or just 3, it's all good.

Stir the sugar into the water.

Add 2 teaspoons of active dry yeast to the water and sugar mixture.

Do not mix this up, just let the yeast float on top of the water.

Put this aside for about 15 minutes while you move onto the next step of the dry ingredients. Set a timer.

In a new, bigger bowl, add 2 level cups of whole wheat flour.

This means as you scoop it, either level it off with a straight edge (spoon handle, knife, etc...), or just scoop into the flour bucket and pull up along a flat side.

Add 1 cup of white flour, levelled, along with the other flour.

Add 2 teaspoons of Kosher salt to the other dry ingredients.

At this point in your big bowl you should have 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of white flour, and 2 teaspoons of salt.

Stir it all up.

You'll have a few minutes to wash hands or read a book while you're waiting for your yeast to bloom.

After your 15 minute timer your yeast in the water+sugar mixture should look similar to the picture.

If you're using older yeast, or colder water, give it some more time.

If you're in a cooler climate like me, warm your oven for a minute or two, you'll need a place for the dough to rise later.

Pour the wet ingredients bowl ( yeast, water, sugar) into the dry ingredients bowl (2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 cup white flour, 2 teaspoons salt ).

Mix it all up, the dough will be sticky like the video shows. This is fine.

If you're in a warmer climate you can probably just rise on your counter, or in a sunny window.

I wouldn't know, it's cold up here.

Up here, in winter, you warm your oven for a couple of minutes then shut it off.

Put the mixture in the oven with the door slightly ajar.

Rise for about 1 hour.

If it looks like the second picture, you can move on.

If it's not done rising yet, just cover it up, give it another hour, and try again.

If you've done that, and it still hasn't risen, you can choose to have either a denser bread or check the expiry date on your yeast.

With olive oil or butter, oil the destination pie plates or dishes.

My significant other seems to have broken all of our pie dishes, so we'll use oven friendly circular ceramic dishes for our PI day bread.

I have a food brush always available in a small cup of olive oil, you can do something similar to brush the pans.

Alternatively, just use a stick of butter and rub it on the inside of the dishes.

This step is important. Our dough is sticky, and without oil or butter you will have a difficult time getting the dough out when it's done.

In my scenario I'm using 3.14 ceramic dishes (well... 3 dishes, but 1 is a bit bigger than the other).

The dough will be very sticky as the video shows, but just use a spoon or two to split it up into the cooking containers.

Preheat your oven to 425 F.

Cover your dough for the second rise, 20-31.4 minutes, easiest place is on top of the stove while the oven is warming up.

Once the oven has warmed up, put the dough in the oven.

Put it in the oven that has been been warmed up to 425 F.

Cook it for 15 minutes.

When the timer goes off, lower the temperature to 375 F and cook it for another 16.4 min.

(15+16.4 = 31.4 minutes total cooking time )

Take the bread out of the oven.

At this point the top should have a nice golden brown.

You have a couple of choices. Since this bread is going to be flipped upside down, the top (what you see now in the dish) will become the bottom.

If you'd like a crispy bottom, skip this step.

If you'd like a soft bottom, then lightly oil (or butter) the bread.

Take a knife and go around the edges of the container for each bread, and just loosen it.

Once that's done, turn it upside down onto a breadboard or clean surface.

After a few minutes you should be able to just flip the bread out.

You're done.

Lots of small steps, but pretty simple. No kneading, fairly flexible ingredients, and most important it produces circular bread.

If your significant other has not broken the pie pans I advise you to try this recipe in pie pans, otherwise use "Pi" pans with any oven friendly circular cooking vessel.

Happy eating.