No Knead Banh Mi | Easier Vietnamese Baguettes!

Make Banh Mi EASIER! If you want light and airy Vietnamese Baguettes at home but don’t want to knead (and don’t have a machine to help), you’ve come to the right place! The crust is thin, crackly and very crisp while the interior is light and fluffy like a cloud. This is the bread to make Banh Mi sandwiches; the iconic Vietnamese street food (or as I knew them in the 90’s, Vietnamese Subs).

🥖GET THE PRINTABLE RECIPE: https://www.marystestkitchen.com/how-to-make-no-knead-banh-mi/
⚠️WARNING⚠️Do NOT use a glass pan instead of the specified metal pan. It can explode⚠️

For banh mi filling inspo, check out this video: https://youtu.be/bPmoPwGal-I

If you don’t have as much time (or patience) but DO have kneading machine (like a stand mixer with dough hook or bread machine that lets you use just the kneading function), check out my original banh mi recipe that you can make in an afternoon here: https://youtu.be/o5WHfwuO3II

🍞MORE BREAD RECIPES▶️https://mtk.fyi/AsianBreadRecipes

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Bunme for people who love carbs with crackle but hate effort. Hello friends and not yet friends. Welcome back to Mary’s Test Kitchen where my fluffy inside crackly outside bunme recipe has been getting five stars for years. But not everyone has a stand mixer or the upper body strength to make that one. So I developed this easier no method just for you. Still vegan friendly like the traditional kind and with only simple grocery store ingredients. Please give this video a thumbs up to help spread the word. And without further ado, let’s get our warm water into a bowl to start this dough. 355 ml, which is 1 and 1/2 US cups of warm water, between 105 and 110° F. Then a wee bit of sugar and instant yeast. Although this recipe is far from instant, and traditional dryactive yeast will work here, too. Just to give us peace of mind that the yeast is alive and ready to go. Wait 5 to 10 minutes to see that foaming action and little gas bubbles rise up indicating the yeast is already turning sugar into CO2 and ethanol. Then one of two secrets for fluffy inside and crackly outside bun me bread flour specifically cuz it’s high in protein. Also known as strong flour, bread flour is 12 to 14% protein. The ones I actually tested with are 13 to 14%. So, when in doubt, check the label or check the manufacturer’s website. You’ll need 510 g or 18 oz. This is one packed cup. 165 g. And that’s why we don’t measure by cups. The ratio of water to flour is really important to this recipe. Same as with my original bunme recipe, to get that thin crackly crust at the end. So, please, please, please measure these by weight. Most kitchen scales are only accurate to 2 g though. So for the next ingredient, you’ll need your measuring spoons. 1 and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to bring out that lovely baked wheat flavor of your bunme, but not enough to make it actually salty. Then time to whip out the chopsticks or use like a spoon or your hands. Just stir the flour until it’s been completely absorbed by the water and you will not need to knead. Look at this raggedy thing. But don’t judge it too harshly. Give it time. Cover the bowl to keep the moisture in. And this goes in the fridge for 24 to 48 hours. After 24 hours, see the difference? Not only has the flour absorbed the water more evenly, making the dough smoother, the proteins, aka gluten, have aligned and created this network that traps the growing CO2 gas bubbles produced by the yeast. And it’s so soft and squishable. This is what I love about making bread. If you’re in a hurry, you might stop here and make your bunme today, but this is Mary’s test kitchen, so we’re going to compare the dough rested for 2 days as well. Two portions will go back in the fridge while we work on this one today. To make it easier to work with, I’m going to let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. Afterwards, let’s get into this 24-hour dough texture. It’s much smoother and stretchier than it began, but I can feel denser bits in there. It’s not completely even. The dough is sticking quite a bit as you can see, which is fine. I can add a little flour to help me out, but not too much, lest it affect my final results. Compare it to our dough after the full 48 hour cold ferment. Straight out of the fridge, definitely more developed. I can smell that bit of that fermentation smell. I’m not feeling any denser bits in here. It is cold though, so I’m just going to leave it alone for 30 minutes. Then after 30 minutes, at room temperature, much smoother. No denser bits detected, and it doesn’t stick nearly as much. Now, you might be wondering, what will happen if you let the dough rest even longer? Sorry, I didn’t film the 72-hour version, but it pretty much looks and feels the same. However, there is a difference I’ll talk about later. Whether you’re following the recipe with 48 hour dough or being a rebel with the 24-hour shortcut, the next step is dividing the dough into the final bunme portions. You can weigh them to make them exact or just eyeball it for your perfect single sandwich size. Maybe you want yours bigger or smaller. It’s up to you because these are your crispy, crackly, street doll worthy bunme and there are no rules except perhaps with shaping. Let’s do it this way. First, make the portions into balls. It’s easy to do by folding the rough edges under the ball, then cupping over top and rolling in small circles, lightly pressing. I’ll show you once more. just to compare the 24-hour dough. It’s a bit trickier to do. You just need a little more finesse and patience, but this is just dough. Okay, if you’re having a rough time with one, just smoosh it down and show it who’s boss. Now that we have all the dough balls, take the one you worked on first, as it will be the easiest to work with now and flatten it. These days, I like to use a rolling pin, but back in the day, I used an old beer bottle and it worked just fine. Use what you have, I always say. Then on one of the shorter ends, roll it up tightly. When you get to the end, pinch along the seam to seal it. Then you can roll over top to smooth everything out. And to get those signature tapered ends, tent your hands so your pinkies are down. The opposite of tea time. I’m putting light pressure from the middle to the ends. And that lengthens the baguette. Keep in mind this will rise between two to three times the size in diameter, but the length will pretty much stay the same. Finally, onto my non-stick baguette pan. The shape and the perforated bottom gives the bunme that Vietnamese bakery perfection. However, even on a regular flat baking pan, the baguettes will still come out crispy, crackly, and delicious just with flat bottoms. But before any of that can happen, these babies need time to grow up. And like all babies, they need protection while they do that. In my original bunme recipe, I used plastic wrap. works for me every time. But if you put a little too much water in the dough, it can stick pretty bad. So, I’m trying out a couple other solutions. First way, dust the baguette with lots of flour, then cover with plastic wrap as normal. The middle one is our control, just plastic wrap. Third is a clean, damp kitchen towel. Sustainable, simple, and classic, but keeping that lint-free in a household of cats challenging. Then for a steamy oven without the actual steam oven, I’m placing a pan of hot boiling water with the rising baguettes. 30 minutes into proofing in our steamy kitchen. Here’s what it looks like. Take them out after another 30 minutes or until they’ve doubled in size. Also, empty the pan, return it to the bottom of the rack, and start preheating that oven to 475° F or 245° C. Also, get a kettle of water boiling and a heats safe measuring cup handy. Now, for the moment of truth. Plastic wrap with flour combo comes off flawlessly. plastic wrap by itself. It is sticking. I haven’t made this happen with my original recipe, but this one is behaving differently. Still, it’s not too difficult to stop it from collapsing. I’m just kind of rolling the sticking parts of the wrap with a light brushing motion of my finger. It’s all good. Finally, the cloth. It is sticking a little. They look great. So, all methods work, but one and three are a lot more foolproof. When your oven is fully preheated, it’s time to slash and bake. First, let’s brush the excess flour off this little baby. And brush the tops of all of them with water. If you have a spray bottle, use that. It’s even better, more even. Cuz this will help the next step. Slash the tops with a sharp knife. I want about a centimeter depth. And this allows the loaves to rise evenly in the oven. I probably should have sharpened this for cleaner lines, but it works nonetheless. Now, for a bit of danger, wait until your kettle of water has boiled and measure out 100 ml. Then, immediately place the loaves on the center rock of the oven and pull out the bottom tray. So, you can pour in the water and be real careful to not be in the way of that steam. Gently close everything up and the steam will help form that thin crust during the first part of baking, but then it will dry up and the baguettes will continue to bake in the dry oven and get nicely golden. After 18 minutes of baking, our 48hour no need bunme are ready. At first, you can see the surfaces are fairly smooth, but in seconds you should start to hear it. The crackle has begun. Before I show you the inside, what about our 24-hour Vietnamese baguettes? Actually, they were a little stickier to shape, but they were manageable. And I did the same test during the proofing stage, but I forgot to put them in the steamy oven. Still, they rose nicely. And after baking, they also crackled. I baked these for two more minutes than um the 48 hour batch. So, they are a bit darker, but other than the color, the outside is super similar. The crust is still nice and thin and crisp. The spring is pretty decent, and the inside, the crumb is a little bit uneven. I don’t know if you can tell on camera. That said, growing up, my favorite bunme place removed some of the fluff to make room for fillings anyways. So, I don’t think it’s that important. It’s the crust and the fresh bread aroma that really makes it. So, if you’re in a hurry, 24 hours is all it takes. But the 48-hour bunme is something else. We have the signature thin crackly crust, soft and fluffy, light interior, but also extra flavor from the cold fermentation. I think it tastes even better than the bakery. And like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t record the 3-day version, but it gets even more flavor without sacrificing the texture. So, if you have time, I do recommend it. However, it does get away from the original flavor of bunme, which typically is not fermented this long or cold fermented to my knowledge. I have all the details in the blog post. So, when you’re ready to make these yourself, you can read all about it and get the printable recipe. But tell me, what are you putting in your bunme sandwich? Let me know in the comments below. Thank you so much for watching, my friends. I put a lot of effort and weeks into developing the no need version of my bunme recipe, which that one took years to develop. So, I really hope this will help you make lovely bunme sandwiches at home with little or less effort, or a different kind of effort using patience and calendar alarms rather than elbow grease or a stand mixer investment. Uh, please give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and subscribe if you haven’t already. Like I alluded to before, I had to cut out traditional carbby bread at home for a while for health reasons, but now I am able to bake again. My partner is like so happy about it. Anyways, let me know what kind of bread recipes you want to see on the channel and maybe I can make it happen. Bye for now.