Wednesday, October 07, 2009

~Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes~

I mentioned a week or so ago that I was making bread, using the method outlined in the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

If you aren't familiar with this book, here's the description in a nutshell: you mix together flour, salt, yeast, and water. The result is a wet dough that you do not knead. It all goes in the fridge, and as you need bread, you take out enough for a loaf, prepare the dough (without kneading), and bake it. It's a little more complicated than that, but I did say, "in a nutshell". ;-)

The first loaf turned out ok. I didn't bake it long enough, so I stuck it back in the oven. Also, I don't have all the proper kitchen tools the book calls for, so when I went to transfer my loaf of bread to the stone in the oven, my loaf rolled and slid off, plopping top side down. So needless to say it wasn't the most beautiful loaf of bread I've ever seen.

This was my second loaf:


Again, not the most beautiful loaf of bread I've ever seen! :-P

Since I cut the recipe in half I had enough dough for two loaves of bread. This bread is good. I think that given enough practice and the right kitchen tools, I could make some awesome bread.

But. All that white flour...I try to use whole grains - I've even switched to whole grain pasta. And. I could eat a loaf or two of this bread daily. So. I think I'll chalk this up to a fun experiment.

4 comments:

Brynwood Needleworks said...

Hi Tammy:
Making bread is such a sensual labor of love. There's nothing like the smell of baking bread!

One hint that might hold you over til you get those tools...Handsome and I make homemade pizza. He makes the dough in the breadmaker and then I do the assembly. I always use a stone to bake and it used to be pretty tricky to get the dough from a flat cookie sheet onto the hot stone. Until I figured that a bed of corn meal can really act as little "marbles" to move the dough from one place to another. Just make sure that the dough slide on the cornmeal on the cookie sheet and then just slide it to transfer to your stone (or the mesh grate I see in your picture). Takes a little practice, but in no time flat, you'll be a pro.

Hope that helps.
xoxo
Dee

Anonymous said...

We have been making "No Knead Bread" and we love it! The rising time is long, but if you plan of it let me tell you it is worth it!

Here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html?ref=dining

and here is a link http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/faster-no-knead-bread/ I found to follow up that link and it says you can even do it faster than the original link. (Haven't tried it yet though)

Anonymous said...

I think the authors of that book are coming out with a healthy bread book. Sue

Tammy said...

Thanks for the hints and links!

Sue, I had heard that too, I will have to check that option out!