Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

In my years of reading cookbooks, periodicals and other food-related material, I have come across quite a few recipes that purport to be shortcut methods to make standard recipes. I eagerly try them, knowing ahead of time that it is probably really too good to be true and, alas, it always has been. Until now. I have actually come across two very different recipes for two very different foods that can be made as deliciously (or maybe even surpass) their long, slow, traditional methods to make. Bread and chocolate ice cream.

My early morning swimming buddy, Clo, and I were waiting for the pool to open early in the morning, as we do nearly every morning at the Y. She asked me if I had tried the quick method bread that is the latest thing. I was amazed that I hadn’t even heard about it, especially when she told me one of the authors of the cookbook, “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” was on Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s MPR radio show explaining a really revolutionary method of baking bread.

The secret is succinctly stated on a fore-page of the book:

It is so easy to have freshly baked bread when you want it with only five minutes a day of active effort. First, mix the ingredients from our recipe into a container all at once, and then let them sit for two hours. Now you are ready to shape and bake the bread, or you can refrigerate the dough and use it over the next couple of weeks. Yes, weeks! You’ve prepared enough dough for many loaves. When you want fresh-baked crusty bread, take a piece of the dough from the container and shape it into a loaf. Let it rise for twenty minutes or more and then bake. Your house will smell like a bakery and your family and friends will love you for it.

I really didn’t believe the bread would be any good, but I had to try it. It really is as simple and good as the book said. I have only tried the first master recipe which makes a French “boule.” “Boule” in French means “ball.” Since the book, written by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois says that you should become familiar with the boule recipe before going through the rest of the book. I did just that.

I had piqued Zig’s curiosity by this time and he got as involved in that first batch as I did. I don’t think either of us believed the bread would be edible. After all, I had watched my mom, who was a master bread maker, mixing, kneading, letting rise, punching down, shaping, letting rise again, and baking since I was a wee child. This bread couldn’t rival that, could it?

Yes. Here is the recipe and the methodology for the basic “boule”:

(Makes four 1-pound loaves. The recipe is easily doubled or halved.)

3 cups lukewarm water
1 ½ Tbsp granulated yeast (1 ½ packets)
1 ½ Tbsp kosher or other coarse salt
6 ½ cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour, measured with the scoop-and-sweep method
Cornmeal for pizza peel

Warm the water slightly, to about 100 degrees. 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. Don’t worry about getting it all to dissolve. Mix in the flour—kneading is unnecessary. Mix with a wooden spoon, a high-capacity food processor (14 cups or larger) fitted with the dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the dough hook until the mixture is uniform. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches. Allow to rise at room temperature in the container you’re using, covered. Longer rising times (up to 5 hours) will not harm the result. You can use a portion of the dough any time after this period. Fully refrigerated wet dough is less sticky and is easier to work with than dough at room temperature. So, the first time you try this method, it’s best to refrigerate the dough overnight (or at least 3 hours) before shaping a loaf. When ready to bake, prepare a pizza peel by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal. Sprinkle the surface of the dough with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough, using a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick to your hands. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. The correctly shaped final product will be smooth and cohesive. This takes 30-60 seconds. Rest the loaf and let it rise on the cornmeal-covered pizza peel. Allow the loaf to rest on the peel for about 40 minutes. It does not need to be covered. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread. Dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour and slash a ¼-inch-deep cross or four straight, parallel lines into the top, using a serrated bread knife. After the 20-minutes preheat, slide the loaf off the pizza peel and onto the preheated baking stone. Quickly pour about 1 cup of hot water from the tap into the broiler tray and close the oven door to trap the steam. Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool on rack completely before slicing and serving.

Next week I’ll give you the premium chocolate ice cream recipe that you make sans ice cream maker (of any kind), and without stirring—and, yes, it really is creamy, chocolaty and delicious!)