As Jeff has mentioned before, he likes to cook, and I like to bake. But regardless of our preferred roles in the kitchen, our whole family loves bread, especially fresh bread right out of the oven. But homemade bread can be labor-intensive, making it more of a special treat than a daily enjoyment.
Well, I should say that’s the way it used to be. Now it’s no big deal to make fresh homemade bread, because it only takes me about five minutes a day.
I purchased the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day a couple months ago, and it’s totally changed the way I bake bread. There’s no kneading. No bowls to wash. And it only takes five minutes of active preparation when I want to make a loaf of fresh bread.
The recipe below is based on the Master Recipe from the book.
Homemade Bread in Five Minutes
INGREDIENTS
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 T salt
1 1/2 T yeast
6 to 6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Cornmeal for sprinkling
EQUIPMENT
5 to 6 quart container
wooden mixing spoon
pizza peel (optional)
pizza stone (again, nice to have, but not absolutely necessary)
metal pan with raised edges (such as a jelly roll pan)
PREP
Mix the lukewarm water, yeast, and salt in the container.
Add the flour and stir until blended. (This part is so easy, my eight-year-old did it for me.)
Cover the container with plastic wrap or a loose-fitting lid, and allow the dough to rise in a warm place until doubled.
After it is doubled, refrigerate the dough for up to 14 days, making sure the lid is not completely air-tight.
On baking day, sprinkle the dough with flour, and cut off a one pound section (about the size of a grapefruit.)
Form the dough into a ball by rolling the edges under, turning the dough a quarter turn each time, until the dough is smooth (or simply smooth-ish as my dough is in the picture.)
Let the dough rest for 40 minutes on a pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal.
Slash the top of the loaf three or four times using a sharp knife just before baking.
HEAT
20 minutes before baking, place the pizza stone on the middle rack, the metal pan on the bottom rack, and then preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Use the pizza peel to slide the bread onto the pizza stone. Immediately add 1 cup hot water to the metal pan, then shut the oven door. (This steam gives the bread a wonderfully crisp crust.)
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is a deep golden brown.
SERVE
The experts say to let the bread cool before slicing it, and I’m sure they’re right, but I’ve never been able to wait that long.
HOT TIPS
- Spray your knife with non-stick spray before slicing the dough to allow the knife to cut more easily.
- Use a strainer or colander to cover the dough while it’s resting to keep any flies away.
- You can shape the dough into any shape you’d like. We prefer to make baguettes, which also allows us to cut the resting time down to only twenty minutes. Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day gives specific directions, rest times, and bake times for different loaf shapes.
- You can double, triple, quadruple, etc. the recipe if you have a large enough container to store the dough.
- There’s no need to wash the container in between every batch. Once you empty the container, simply mix up another batch of dough in the same container.
- I often use only 6 cups of flour in each batch instead of 6 1/2 as I find my dough is sometimes too dry. You might like to watch this video by the authors of the book to see how they suggest you measure the flour so that your dough will come out right.
Don’t forget to go visit Jen at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and link up your Holiday Breads. And you definitely don’t want to miss Desserts at The Happy Housewife tomorrow!
15 Comments