Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Bread Baking Binge



I have become absolutely obsessed with baking bread lately. Seriously obsessed. It all started with this book.
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. No lie. Five. Minutes. A. Day.  Basically what you do is mix up a big batch of very wet dough and stick it in the fridge. Then every day you cut off a big hunk of it, let it proof for about 40 minutes and pop it in the oven. There's no kneading at all which is a huge plus for me.

I've only made the bread from the basic recipe so far, but I've baked at least 10 loaves of it and every one of them came out perfect. I follow the recipe exactly except that I bake the bread in a dutch oven, a la' the No Knead Bread recipe that was in the New York Times two years ago.

I love this book. Patrick and Erin are pretty fond of it too.




19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mmmm ... homemade bread. I LOVE homemade bread, but don't make it often enough. (And I've been lusting after that book, too.)

Katom Burke said...

i love making bread! except, i love the kneading! i make bread with patients sometimes....you are giving me ideas for my day off tomorrow!
-Kate

Guido said...

Have you seen this improved no knead bread recipe from cooks illustrated?
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/video/default.asp?docid=11923&newVideo=y

Cindy said...

I love this book too and can't recommend it enough! Even my young children love this bread. Cindy

Anonymous said...

I almost bought that book but thought 5 minutes sounded too good to be true. I'm going to get it, thanks. Jen

Sue said...

I have the book as well and love the idea that you don't have to spend all day baking/waiting.
It's a great book!!!

Susan said...

Have any of you who have the book gone beyond the basic recipe yet? I'm ready to try something new but the options are overwhelming me.

Melissa said...

I love making bread myself and that cozy smell when it's baking in the oven.

Turtle said...

sounds great! i have been missing my bread machine since we moved and got rid of everything! of course warm fresh bread is my weakness! with winter so close though i think i need to try this method!

Anonymous said...

I love this bread method. I haven't purchased the book yet. I wanted to see if I'd stick with the basic recipe first.
I bought a flat rectangular rubbermaid container for the dough. It doesn't seem to take up as much space in my fridge.

Susan said...

THe fridge space thing is actually huge. I have a sort of bowl with a lid that I can leave slightly ajar but it takes up the entire bottom shelf. Rectangular might be the way to go...

jordi said...

I've been making bread from this book too. I made the master recipe and the semolina. I like the basic recipe so much that I now have bread ready to go almost all the time!

http://abovethegwb.blogspot.com/2008/08/ve-been-busy.html

I used to occasionally make it the "old Fashioned" way, but I actually like the taste of this better. I have an old huge ironstone bowl that takes up the whole bottom shelf of the fridge, alas.. but it works!

Logan said...

I'm obsessed with this book too! I have some of the Vermont Cheddar Bread dough in the fridge right now. The last loaves I made were the olive bread and the sundried tomato/parm bread with the olive oil dough. We also used it to make our own pizza dough. They all turned out really good but my fave so far is definitely the sundried tomato/parm!!!

Sue said...

Susan, there is a flickr group with some really yummy pictures of things people have made from the book http://www.flickr.com/groups/artisanbreadinfive/

Susan said...

Those pictures are beautiful! One of the things I love about this book is that the bread looks so professional, you know?

Sue said...

...and sooo European. I'm from Germany and what I miss the most in North America is good bread and buns with a real crusts not just the discoloration on the edge of bread and made with real grains and not just colored flour. The soft ,mushy white, and even whole wheat bread that you can by everywhere just don't cut it for me. :0) I like fresh bread right out of the oven........If you don't live in a town where you have a good baker it's hard to come by good real bread. This book makes it easy to make your own...

Susan said...

How cool is that?!?

Anonymous said...

I love that book too!! I have made the regular boule recipe, light wheat, brioche, buttermilk and cinnamon raisin bread. I have also made pizza from the dough. It is all delicious.

woolies said...

Wow Susan, how cool is that - one of the authors found your blog post. !
I bake bread a lot, and have never seen that book, so I guess there's something new for my Christmas list!