Artisan Bread

Woke up this morning to find only the heel of Wednesday's loaf left over. This would not do.

Before I dive into a bread-making frenzy, I need coffee. The coffee tin however, is empty. Luckily we have an emergency stash, carefully guarded by our fake cat. Notice his paw, hiding bricks of espresso. Tricky kitty.

Now caffeinated, I can get to the good stuff. Our fridge always has a container filled with dough in it. This container has enough dough for two loaves of bread. When empty, it is replenished with more dough and thrown back in the fridge for future loaves. The bread costs cents, has a few basic ingredients, all recognizable and tastes fantastic. We use white flour and modify the recipe in order to make pizza dough. The pizza dough and bread are always big hits. It's time to share our secret and let people know just how dummy-proof this recipe is.  


From: Hertzberg, J. and Francois, Z. Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking New York: Thomas Dunne Publishing. 2007 p 26. 


Ingredients

• 3 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1/2 T granulated yeast (2 packets)
• 1 1/2 T kosher or other coarse salt
• 6 1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white or whole wheat flour
• Seeds  (we use about 1/2 cups of flax seeds) *optional

Warm the water slightly: It should feel just a little warmer than body temperature, about 100 degrees F. Warm water will rise the dough to the right temperature in about two hours. You can use cold tap water and get the identical result, but the first rising will take 3-4 hours.


Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5-quart bowl, or preferably, in a resealable, lidded (not airtight), plastic food container or food-grade bucket. Dont worry about getting it all to dissolve.


Mix in the flour-kneading is unnecessary: Add all of the flour at once, measuring it in with dry-ingredient  measuring cups, by gently scooping up flour, then sweeping the top level with a knife or spatula, don't press down into the flour as you scoop or you'll throw off the measurement by compressing. Mix with a wooden spoon, a high-capacity food processor fitted with the dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the dough hook until the mixture is uniform. If you're hand-mixing and it becomes too difficult to incorporate all the flour with the spoon, you can reach into your mixing vessel with very wet hands and press the mixture together. Don't knead! It isn't necessary. You're finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches. This step is done in a matter of minutes, and will yield a dough that is wet and loose enough to confirm to the shape of its container.

Allow to rise: Cover with a lid (not airtight) that fits well to the container you're using. Do not use screw-topped bottles or Mason jars, which could explode from the trapped gases. Lidded plastic buckets designed for dough storage are readily available. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse, approximately 2 hours, depending on the room's temperature. Longer rising times, up to about 5 hours, will not harm the result. You can use a portion of the dough any time after this period. Fully refrigerated dough is less sticky and easier to work with than dough at room temperature. So, the first time you try our method, it's best to refrigerate the dough overnight, before shaping a loaf.

I remove half of the dough and mould it into a log. I slice several cuts into the surface of the dough and let sit for 20 minutes. Then I turn on the oven to 450 degrees and let the loaf continue to sit while the oven heats up. Once heated, I put a tray in one of the bottom racks of the oven and fill with 1-2 cups of water. The loaf gets put on a cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper and slides into one of the shelves above the water-filled tray. Let the bread bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes before serving.