(Update: I’m not so sure this is my favorite bread now. I’m tired of it already! Sigh… Off to find something new… –Lisa 04/30/09)
Alright, I have found out how to make a very easy, very yummy loaf of bread. This is one of those hard crusty ARTISAN type loafs of bread. Did I mention that this bread was VERY easy to make?
I was tipped off on the existence of this bread about a month ago. I have made it a few times and tweaked the recipe to fit my needs and I am thrilled with the results. I will give you the video I watched, plus the recipe someone gave me.
Please click on this link below and watch the video. Your life will be changed forever:
Now, here is the recipe as I received it. I have NO idea who wrote this up, it was given to me without a name on it. (Well, I am going to write in my changes to the recipe in RED.)
**************************************************************
Just found this posted on a forum I’m on:
Best Bread cook book I’ve ever seen.
We love crusty chewy bread. This is the best bread I have ever made. What is so neat is you can make the dough in a couple of minutes, no kneading, let rise for a couple of hours then put it in the fridge. I mix mine in a five gallon bucket and quadruple the recipe. Can be used for weeks. Would be a great way to make bread in tent city. The basic Master Dough is
6 cups water
3 TBL Sp salt (This seemed like a lot to me. I use 2 Tablespoons.)
3 TBL Sp yeast (I only have “instant” yeast right now, so I dropped this to 2 Tablespoons as well.)
13 cups flour (I used 1/2 WW 1/2 white) (I was a wimp at first and did about 3/4 whole wheat and 1/4 white flour. However, I tried it with 100% whole wheat–hard white and it was fabulous.)
After a day in fridge remove about a pound of dough and make into ball tucking the dough into itself underneath. Dust with flour in this process. I make four at a time. They all slide off easily. Set it on something you can slide it off from, ideally a peel, that has been dusted with corn meal. Let it set for 40 minutes. (It will look like it has not risen, it will do this in the oven giving that characteristic look you see with European breads) Dust with flour and score the top 1/4 inch deep, X, tic tac toe, or 3 straight lines. Preheat oven to 350. If you have a baking stone, heat it in the oven. Place an old cookie sheet, (the one you have not got around to throwing away) on the bottom rack (Make sure this gets preheated as well). Slide the dough onto the hot stone pour 1 cup water on the cookie sheet, and in a half hour or more you will have the most delicious bread you have ever tasted. (I found that with whole wheat I have had to cook it for one hour. For a larger loaf, you might want to do even longer. I learned this lesson the hard way… I use a instant thermometer and make sure the bread is up to 180-200 degrees F.)
If you like to bake you will love this book, if you do not like to bake, you will love this book.
I told my wife she is going to love me when I got this book. She said I already love you. I said no, you are going to reeeaaally love me. It’s true.
Making pizza with it today.
About the Book
Jeff and Zoë wrote Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day so that baking homemade bread would be easy enough to become a daily ritual for everyone. That includes people struggling to balance work, family, friends, and social life (pretty much all of us). They developed their method of refrigerator-stored artisan dough while juggling career transition and young children at home.
Our story as co-authors has been great fun: we’re busy parents who met during our toddlers’ music class. Zoë’s a pro, but Jeff’s a doctor and academic working in health care consulting. The combination has been a great strength because we produced a book for non-professionals with no time (but baking up a professional result). Through a bit of sheer luck…
Jeff called in on the radio with the story of a super fast bread recipe (Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s The Splendid Table on NPR) to tell the story of artisan loaves with active preparation time of five minutes a day. The result: mouth-watering breads whose quality rivals that of any book on the market today. The secret is pre-mixed high-moisture dough that you store in the refrigerator to use at your leisure. An editor from a major NY publisher was listening to the radio show and asked for a book proposal (Ruth Cavin of St. Martin’s Press). Jeff and Zoë met while their toddlers were in a music class together. The kids played xylophones and we talked gluten cloaking. Zoë turned the book into a professional-quality tool for amateurs to use at home, and she added in all the dessert breads, basing everything on the same high-moisture stored dough approach. We got busy with a book proposal and eventually, the full version of the book, which was released by St. Martin’s Press / Thomas Dunne Books on November 13, 2007. The book meets the needs of an amateur like Jeff (it’s fast and it’s easy), but it gives results professional enough to be served by Zoë, a pastry chef and baker trained at the Culinary Institute of America. And within a month of release, our book became the number 1 bread cookbook on Amazon.com. Enjoy!
**********************************************************************************
Okay. Try it. Tell me you love it. My boys aren’t too fond of the hard crust, but they eat it alright. John and I are in heaven. I tried a batch with quite a bit of rye flour in it and it didn’t work as good as I hoped for. I will adjust it and see if I can make it work. I think next I will try a rosemary/olive blend. I’m excited! John said that if this bread was harder to make than normal bread, he would say it was worth it. Did I tell you how EASY it is to make this bread?
I better go grind me some more wheat. I am salivating here thinking about it. Have a great day!
Tags:
Welcome to our family blog! The hard work of others has finally paid off, and we now have a blog, largely to share the pictures of our littlest one, Avalon! She was born March 10th at 10:58 PM in Grandpa and Grandma Pratt's home (where Lisa and John are staying now). Thanks for visiting!
