Bread Even We Can Bake
Posted By Michelle on March 23, 2009
We make no effort in concealing the fact that Greg hates to bake. Precision measuring is tiresome, flour gets everywhere, sugar is sticky, chocolate is goopy, and the resulting mess is impressive, to say the least. So, he doesn’t do it much.
Occasionally, he might get the bug to make some bread, but that’s about as far as it goes. One of the big issues with him baking bread is the amount of time required – spontaneous bread making results in a loaf finally hitting the oven around midnight, because he didn’t plan very wisely, which in turn discourages him from bread baking activities.
Michelle, on the other hand, loves to bake. However, lacking any formal training, she’s a bit daunted by the whole process – mixing, rising, knocking down, scaling, baking, blah blah blah.
Luckily for both of us, Greg started an online conversation with Jeffery Hertzberg, co-author of the book “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: the Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking”. Jeffery, a physician and bread fanatic, teamed with Zoe Francois, a Culinary Institute of America trained pastry chef, to create a method for creating fresh baked bread with only 5 minutes of actual hands-on time per day.
In a teaming much like ours; Jeff, a medical doctor with no formal culinary training, was unburdened by preconceived notions of how things HAD to be done. He stripped down the bread baking process to its most basic elements in order to feed his passion for baking but lack of free time. Together with Zoe, they refined the concept to arrive at recipes that they feel anyone can handle with relative ease. They even tested the recipes on Zoe’s strictly no-cooking Mother.
As you can see from our position statements, this had great appeal to both of us. So, we got the book and got to baking. We made bread for friends, family, perfect strangers – and they loved it. The base recipe yields a dense, crisp crust, and custard-like inside that really is a thing of beauty and it really only took about 5 minutes of hands on time. Genius! Can’t wait to try the Brioche recipe!
Master Bread Recipe from “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day”
Courtesy of Jeffrey and Zoe
Makes four 1-pound loaves
1½ tablespoons granulated yeast
3 cups lukewarm water, about 100º F (1½ pounds)
1½ tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt (can decrease to 1 tablespoon to taste)
6½ cups unbleached all-purpose white flour—no need to sift (2 pounds)
Cornmeal for the pizza peel
1 In a 5-quart bowl, mix the yeast, water and salt. Add all the flour, then use a wooden spoon to mix until all ingredients are uniformly moist. It is not necessary to knead or continue mixing once the ingredients are uniformly moist. This will produce a loose and very wet dough.
2.Cover with a lid (not airtight). Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse, about 2 hours, but no more than 5 hours.
3.After rising, the dough can be baked immediately, or covered (non completely airtight) and refrigerated up to 14 days. The dough will be easier to work with after at least 3 hours refrigeration.
4.On baking day, prepare a pizza peel by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal to prevent the bread from sticking when you transfer it to the oven (or use parchment paper). Uncover the dough and sprinkle the surface with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough (serrated knives or kitchen shears are best). Store the remaining dough in the bowl (covered with plastic wrap) and refrigerate for baking at another time.
5.Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick. Create a smooth ball of dough by gently pulling the sides down around to the bottom, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. While shaping, most of the dusting flour will fall off. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out during resting and baking. Shaping the loaf this way should take no more than 1 minute.
6.Place the dough on the pizza peel. Allow the loaf to rest for about 40 minutes. It does not need to be covered. The bread may not rise much during this time.
7.Twenty to thirty minutes before baking, place a pizza stone on the center rack of the oven. If you don’t have a baking stone, use another baking sheet. Remove any upper racks. Place a broiler pan on a rack below the pizza stone. Preheat oven to 450 F.
8.When the dough has rested for 40 minutes (or longer for a more “open” crumb), dust the top liberally with flour, then use a serrated knife to slash a 1/4-inch-deep cross or tic-tac-toe pattern into the top.
9.Slide the loaf off the peel and onto the baking stone. Quickly but carefully pour 1 cup of hot water into the broiler tray and close the oven door.
10.Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is deeply browned and firm to the touch. Allow the bread to cool completely, preferably on a wire cooling rack.
Stumble it!
don’t you just love this method??? I’ve been a bread baker for over 20 years (gasp!) and when i saw this, i thought ‘uh uh no way!’
but it’s so true! i’ve made fresh bread nearly every day, with stunning results.
for sunday brekkie i made a cinnamon-raisin bread with the light whole wheat recipe. all i did was preheat the oven (natch!) and then smooshed out the dough, sprinkled cinnamon, raisins, and some sugar. basically rolled it (rather haphazardly) and then baked.
perfection!! and the best part? everyone thinks i’m a genius.
have fun with this method, and don’t be afraid to experiment.
Ooooo, cinnamon raisin bread! Sounds soooo good! I’m gonna give that a go, now that I am a baker and all.
I am loving this method of making bread.
Oh, just wait. It’s awesome!
Do you punch it down before you put it in the fridge, or do you leave it be?
Billy, no need to punch down with this recipe. In fact, the authors discourage it.
Oh, Lord. This book is following me everywhere shouting “MUST BUY! MUST BUY!”… it’s getting to the point where I might have to cave.
Buuuuyyyy mmmeeee…..bbbuuuuuyyyyy mmmmeeeeeeee……Llllllooooooooo
You won’t be disappointed.
you must try the cinnamon rolls recipe. TO DIE FOR. no wait.
To gain 5 lbs. for.
I totally did. Had to hide that book in the home for a couple of months.
Jaden: They are on the list!
i love these guys. love them.
i also hate them for the the reason jaden mentioned.
dangerous…
I cannot believe how EASY this was! I’m frightened to buy the book….OK, you know I will. Thx for the recipe.
Fantastic! Utterly fantastic! I love making bread even if, other than weekly dough for pizza, I don’t make it very often, but this recipe looks so amazingly simple. Hmmm.. I just bought a different bread-baking how-to book, but I think my house is big enough for another.
Great blog! Love it!
I really want this to work, since everyone else is so excited about it and it’s such a terrific concept. However, when we gave it a try, it turned out a rather hockey puck-ish loaf - too dense, and the crust is tough. Any suggestions about how we might obtain a lighter crumb?
Thanks!
Abbey, without any knowledge of how you made the bread the best that I can say is for you to go back and look at where you might have varied from the recipe. I’ve made probably 20 loaves with this method and haven’t had similar results.
Abbey: Hmmmmmm, that is odd. Do you live in a high elevation? Why not ask the experts? I’ll tweet (twitter) Zoe and ask her to leave her response here for you and everyone else that may encounter this problem.
Don’t give up!
Hi Abbey,
Thank you so much for trying the recipe. We’ll figure out what is going on with your bread and have you baking fabulous loaves in no time.
There are a couple of things that can cause a dense crumb with a tough crust. The first thing we suspect is the oven temperature. Do you have an oven thermometer? You don’t need anything fancy, but it will let you know if your oven is running hot or cool or is spot on. If the temperature is too cool it will mean that the bread won’t bake through and will end up baking too long before you have a nice color on your crust, resulting in a tough crust. If it is too hot the crust will darken too quickly and the inside will not be set.
If you bake a larger loaf than 1 pound, you need to allow it to rest longer before baking. The dough should no longer feel cold or dense when it goes in the oven, this can take anywhere from 40 minutes to 1 1/2 hours (there is lots of wiggle room!). You may also need to increase the baking time by about 10+ minutes fr larger loaves.
Lets start there and see if either of those things make a difference. Here is a post on http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com that may help as well: http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=141
Thank you! Zoë
Hi, this is Abbey’s mom : )
You may be correct about the oven temp. I had an AGA installed last year, and have been struggling with my baking ever since. The ovens seem to give a different result with my usual recipes. So I will definitely get an oven thermometer to check: my hunch is that the AGA ovens run a lot hotter.
Also, I do use King Arthur flour, so I will add more water. (Unfortunately, I mixed up more dough before I read your very quick reply, but I will try adding the water to the dough, using the stand mixer).
The last batch was left to rise for 1 hour; I think I will try the hour and a half next time!
Thank you for your so-prompt reply, and for your desire to help us out!
Robbie