My (almost) daily bread
Once upon a time, long, long ago, when I was very, very young I was reading a young woman’s magazine and a tutorial – with photos – of how to make your own bread caught my eye. I can vividly remember working through that first tutorial and the ecstasy of a that first beautiful fresh loaf of bread made with my own hands. And I loved the entire process of mixing and kneading and rising and how good that little apartment smelled.
I’ve continued to make bread – sometimes often, sometimes not. And I started making my own pizza dough a bit later, when I was young…ish.
Fast forward and getting to late October or early November of this year when Linda Carson of The 7MSN Ranch tweeted about baking some bread and provided the link: Bermatopia’s Artisan Bread Awesomeness.
Coincidentally, I had just failed at my first attempt to make an artisanal Ciabatta recipe. Being not so young any more and needing reading glasses and assuming I knew what I was doing with 35 plus years of baking experience behind me, I used the wrong flour.
Anyway, this recipe looked so much easier and Linda made it and raved about its ease so I plunged in….and it changed my life!!! I am not kidding.
Not only was the bread good with that custardy crumb and crisp crust of a bakery ciabatta or boule, as I did some research on the high moisture doughs and bought Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day I discovered the thing that provided further enlightenment and the real life changing part. The dough can be refrigerated and you can pull out what you want on any given day and bake a fresh loaf of bread: elapsed time from frig to table is about an hour, hands on baker’s time is about 5 minutes. The time to mix the dough and get it in the frig in the first place is about 10 minutes.
It is not only the short time involved. Bakery artisanal breads are expensive and taste best the day made and as I prefer to not weigh 900 pounds AND I moderate gluten intake, paying $4 or $5 for a loaf of the bakery bread that mostly gets converted to croutons or bread crumbs gets spendy. The dough can be refrigerated for 7 days and the longer it is in the frig the more “sour” (as in sourdough) it tastes – without dealing with a starter!
I’ve stuck with the quantity in the Bermatopia’s Artisan Bread Awesomeness recipe (vs the larger amount in the book) and that works fine for me to make a little loaf to have with soup or stew, hot pockets or pizza crust and use up the dough within 7 days.
Linda at The 7MSNRanch did 2 step by step posts of the night before mixing and the baking day process:
7MSN Baking Bread Part 1
7MSN Baking Bread Part 2
I don’t do the add flour until the spoon stands up thing that she does. I stick to 3 cups of flour, 1 3/4 cups of water, 1 1/2 tsp sea or kosher salt, and a packet of yeast (I used bulk yeast equivalent to a packet). Lately I’ve been making a combo of 1 cup of cornmeal, 1 cup of Semolina flour and 1 cup of Bread flour – my customization of “Artisan Bread in 5 Days'” Portuguese Broa recipe. I use store bought bread flour but any specialty flours I buy online from King Arthur flour. My favorite for rye bread is King Arthur’s “Perfect for Rye” blend and I combine 1 1/2 cups of that with 1 1/2 cups of bread flour for my rye. Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day – either the site in the link or the book contain varieties, techniques and troubleshooting for high moisture doughs.
Bake this bread, change your life! Seriously, for any who decide to try this method and particularly if you are an experienced traditional yeast dough person…put aside all you think you know about yeast dough and just go with it. If you don’t give up what you think dough should look and feel like, you will be sure that this will never work and that the very sticky dough can not possibly become bread. But it can, it can – Halleluhah, Amen, Happy Sunday :)!