(Photo: coquettenatalie on Instagram)
I have edited quite a few of bread-making articles when I was editor of CRAFT. My mom even had a bakery for years while in my teens. Yet surprisingly, as crafty as I am, I had never attempted to try to bake bread myself. Last week, while crafting at Nancy's house, she presented us with her homemade bread. I couldn't believe that the crust had that wonderful crunch just like from a bakery and there was the wonderful "fresh from the oven warmth" that melted the butter oh so perfectly on top of the bread. I assumed it was complicated, after all I grew up seeing racks and racks of loaves of bread being shuttled in and out of a large brick oven. Nancy assured me it was so easy. She brought out this book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois ($16 at Amazon) and let me borrow it. Let's just say it changed my life.
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day ($16 at Amazon)
I started with the basic artisan boule. The authors talk about how to make the full recipe for the dough and to refridgerate the rest in a container for up to two weeks. (You can also end up using part of that dough to create a sort of sourdough starter for the next batch a few weeks later.) I love that it's no knead. The key, I found is using a baking/pizza stone in the oven to get that crisp outer crust. I bought this Bialetti pizza stone ($12.60) at Target last friday. I didn't get a pizza peel as I took Nancy's suggestion to use just a wooden cutting board but sprinkled with cornmeal. As you can see my technique needs a bit of help as the round loaf got a bit smushed when I tried to quickly flick it onto the pizza stone in the oven.
The basic ingredients you need are all purpose flour and yeast. I used just regular Fleischmann's ActiveDry yeast and not the "instant" kind. The recipe will give you around four one pound loaves. You can cut or double the recipe if you want.
The title of "5 minutes a day" is a bit misleading. I am sure someone added that in because we are always so crazed to do things in just 5 minutes. The process of making the bread is really fast but you do have to account for times for the yeast needs to rise and a half hour for it to bake in the oven. All in all, if you have the dough pre-made and refridgerated, you will have fresh baked homemade bread in about an hour!
(Photo: coquettenatalie on Instagram)
As the loaf cooled down, we enjoyed it with brie and pâté while watching the Emmy's red carpet. I am looking forward to trying out making mini-baguettes (we never finish full baugettes and they always get so hard in a day), as well as brioche. Nothing smells better for your home than fresh baked bread. This is also a wonderful gift for friends, dinner parties or just because.
