The original recipe for no-knead bread, which Mark Bittman learned from the baker Jim Lahey, was immediately and wildly popular. How many novices it attracted to bread baking is anyone’s guess. But certainly there were plenty of existing bread bakers who excitedly tried it, liked it and immediately set about trying to improve it. This is an attempt to cut the start-to-finish time down to a few hours, rather than the original 14 to 20 hours' rising time. The solution is simple: use more yeast. —Mark Bittman

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