Book shows how easy it is to make delicious artisan bread
As a recollection of the taste – along with the smell – of my late grandmother’s homemade bread wafted in my head, I was determined to figure out a way to bring this concept to my home on a normal basis, just as she did. But in this day and age with the hustle and bustle of life, on top of having three children under the age of 4, practicality triumphed over desire.
Last year, armed with the determination to find an easy bread recipe without the knowledge if such a thing existed, I came across a book on the Internet with a title that sounded too good to be true: “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.” It didn’t seem possible, but it intrigued me.
As much as I’ve always simply loved the taste of good bread, I also admired the fancy-looking, seed-coated loaves I’ve purchased from bakeries that sell artisan-style breads. However, the multiple-rise approach that goes along with traditional bread recipes, topped off with punching and then kneading, is something I knew I couldn’t pull off on a regular basis, so I wrote off the idea of making my own.
That all changed when I came across “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking” by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.
The book centered on a brand new concept – a new way of looking at bread making. The two friends’ goal in writing the book was to bring back a dying art in a new way by making it an approachable and easy task to tackle in the kitchen without sacrificing taste, texture and appearance. Both are lovers of baking, with Francois having an extensive background as a pastry chef and Hertzberg’s background in health.
“It’s easy to have freshly baked whole grain and other healthy breads whenever you want them, with only five minutes a day of active effort,” the authors seductively tout in their follow-up book, “Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” for the more health-conscious cook who prefers to use whole grains.
I was eager to purchase the book and pored over it for a month or so before actually taking the plunge. After all, I wanted to do this right and while the notion sounded so tempting, I was still a bit intimidated by the whole concept.
I asked myself, “How was I, an inexperienced bread maker, going to pull off making the loaf showcased on the book’s cover that looked as though it was made by a professional artisan bread maker trained in France?”
Once again, the authors enticed me in the book’s introduction.
“We wanted to discard everything that was intimidating and make the process fast enough to fit into people’s busy lives,” they wrote. “Amateurs found the result extraordinarily easy, yet aficionados found it utterly delicious.”
The more I read and learned about their “speedy method” approach, the more I grasped their concept might be attainable.
“Artisan Bread (in Five Minutes a Day) replaced the time-consuming traditional yeast bread method with something quicker, without compromising quality,” they wrote of the speedier concoction they devised that still includes yeast.
In order to get started, the authors recommend some necessary supplies, most of which you’ll find you already have in your kitchen. Along with some helpful written tips, they also have videos listed on their website (www.artisanbreadinfive.com) that show their techniques and provide all of the necessary tips to make a loaf of bread look and taste professional.
While the book includes hundreds of recipes ranging from brioche to baguettes and pitas to pizzas, they suggest starting with the “master recipe” and moving onto others after you feel comfortable making their artisan loaves. A softer, sandwich-style bread is also included since the master recipe produces a crusty, denser-style bread more in line with a sourdough that is exceptional for eating alone, topped with butter or dipped in olive oil.
As I soaked in their technique and acquired the necessary tools and ingredients, I was so caught up in doing it right that I didn’t do it at all. Pizza stone? Check. Boiler tray for creating steam to harden crust? Check. Vital wheat gluten? Check.
One day as I convinced myself I was fully equipped and had a general grasp of how to go about their technique, I decided I was ready. A little rusty in my approach, I knew that was something time and practice would take care of on its own.
Later, when my house basked in the smell of home-baked bread on top of my family literally devouring it right before my eyes almost as soon as it popped out of the oven, I couldn’t believe how long I’d waited. The appearance looked so professional and I surely was not a pro at this. The author’s claim that “Your house will smell like a bakery and your family and friends will love you for it” was no lie.
It was as simple as throwing five ingredients into a 5-quart container, stirring, adding water, stirring again to make a wet dough and then letting it rest for two hours to rise (once) and voila! No punching. No multiple rising and no kneading!
Over the course of two weeks I can use my dough, stored in the refrigerator, where it sits at the ready for me to pull out to make loaves, rolls or pizzas over the course of two weeks. After shaping the dough, I can go about my business as I let it rest for the required time before popping it into the oven, taking no more than five minutes of active preparation each time.
Thanks to this book, I can no longer make up any excuses for not whipping up some home-baked bread, and the “oohs” and “ahs” the bread receives when I serve it to guests or take a loaf as a house-warming gift is just icing on the cake.
There is good reason the authors quoted MFK Fisher in the 1942 book “How to Cook a Wolf.”
“It does not cost much . . . it leaves you filled with peace, and the house filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells . . . probably there is no chiropractic treatment, no yoga exercise, no hour of meditation . . . that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.”
Contact Courtney H. Diener-Stokes: [email protected].
Bread Making with Bill & Sheila
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