I got a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble for Christmas and decided to buy this book that I had been hearing so much about, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

As busy as I have been I had been reduced to buying (gasp) store bread a couple of times a week and …ewww. I hate that.  I hate giving the family stuff that I know there is no nutrition to, but you have to fill them up somehow, right?

I thought that the idea of making ANY kind of bread in five minutes a day was amazing and worth a try…

I got the book and skimmed through it.  I hardly ever actually read cookbooks, usually I just look at the ingredients and get started.

Well this book sat around for a month because I am just that overwhelmed.

I decided to try the basic bread first.  The instructions warn about compressing the flour and I will give a warning to the warning…I use a canister that holds 50lbs of flour, o.k.? The scoop and scrape method allowed the flour to be too compressed the first time.   I noticed that the dough seemed quite thick and almost dry.   This is how that loaf came out:

It was good flavor-wise but as you can see it was really too dense.  So, yesterday I spooned the flour into the measuring cup lightly, and then scraped the top level.  I added a touch extra water for good measure.  The dough looked like this:

It was a much wetter, looser dough.  I left it at room temperature for the two hours and then refrigerated it over night.  This morning I shaped it into a round as directed.  I don’t have a peel or a baking stone (I KNOW…I KNOW)  so I just made it on a perforated pizza pan.  I was concerned that the dough seemed to want to spread a bit more than I wanted it to but left it to rise for 40 minutes.

I put water in a pan on the bottom rack of the oven as directed but also tossed 2 cups of warm water on the oven floor when I put the bread in.

This is how it looked when it came out.

I had forgotten to slash the top so it sort of exploded in the oven, but looked good.  I let it cool a bit before cutting to see if it had the lovely texture I was looking for…

And here….take a closer look:

I will definitely be making this daily.

The flavor is slightly sour, with a nice chewy texture and crisp crust.  The book has numerous variations including pumpernickel and brioche.  I keep the dough in a large covered stockpot in the fridge.  The books suggests not washing the dough container very often because the dough that sticks to the sides will sour and give a nice sourdough flavor.

Should you get this book?

Uh…YEAH!  Five minutes.  Anyone can do that.  The batch recipe makes 3 one lb loaves but there is no reason you could not make more and bake it fresh every night while you are fixing supper.  In fact if you had another container for the brioche dough you could make it fresh for breakfast every morning as well.  I am putting the book in the Baking Delights Store…it is the link in the sidebar that says “Baking Supplies You Just Gotta Have.”  If you are going to buy this book, and it really is awesome, you can just click on the link to go to the page on amazon.  Then I get a little money to be able to afford to buy MORE cool books.

Image (top) : Amazon

Images (bread): Marye Audet (c)2009

Post from: Baking Delights

The bread in the image above is Kalamata Black Olive Bread

In order to get those awesome artisan breads and pizza crusts you have to have a pizza baking stone of some type in your oven.

Why?

Simply because the baking stone makes for a far superior crust. It is the only way to get the crust right.

Personally, I have plans to construct an outdoor, brick bread oven..oh yeah I do! Probably not this summer but definitely by next summer…mmmm. They are not that hard to do as long as you are careful and use fire proof brick. But I digress…

If you are a serious bread or pizza maker then eventually you are going to want to try baking on these stones. They are expensive! Most of the time they are made for pizza and they are round, which does not work great if you are trying to bake 3 loaves of bread.

You can also run to your nearest Home Depot or Lowes and pick up unglazed quarry tiles. They are very inexpensive and they are square so you can cover an entire rack, or both racks for that matter, with them. I have heard of some concern about lead in them but the lead would be contained in the glaze and these are UNglazed. I do suggest before you use them that you buy a lead test kit and check one of them if you are concerned. The tiles, depending on size, are less the $2 each.

Before you use the tiles wash them with either plain water of a baking soda solution. You are going to cover all but a couple of inches of your rack with the tiles and then you can just leave them in there.Before baking your bread you will preheat the oven to like 450 or so with the tiles in, slide the bread onto the heated tiles (no pans) and bake as usual. Obviously if you are making regular loaves in glass pans, or casseroles in ceramic dishes, you need to take the tiles out first.

Below are some examples of stones I found on Amazon. It was the easiest way to get images for you to look at. As you can see they are very expensive, although they are graded for food so you would not have to have even the slightest concern for lead.

Once you start using them and get used to it you will probably not go back to bread loaves made in a pan again…Nope. You will be making bread in baguettes, boules, and cloche. You will be like a mad scientist creating bubbling vats of sourdough…I am telling ya, it’s addictive!

Image:Marye Audet

Post from: Baking Delights