11 September, 2012

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day




In the past the idea of making artisan bread in five minutes a day would have been scoffed at.  Women routinely spent a large part of their morning mixing, kneading and baking for the day.  Bread used to be considered the “staff of life”.  For decades the dinner table was not complete without a fragrant loaf of homemade bread, dinner rolls, muffins, biscuits, or breadsticks.
Then manufactured bread came along and the flavorful loaves were replaced by tasteless fluff.  The new bread was easy, convenient, and saved the homemaker time.  Over time manufacturers added chemicals and other non-traditional ingredients until this once nutritious food became an amalgamated mass of refined carbohydrates flavored with high fructose corn syrup.

The choices are to find the time to create those homemade, fragrant loaves or to buy the commercial stuff. 
Now there is a third choice.  What if you could create a variety of healthy, homemade breads in five minutes per day?
Now you can.

(c)marye audet 2009
(c)marye audet 2009

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day Is a Technique

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is a not just a collection of excellent bread recipes.  It is a technique that will revolutionize your baking and allow you to create numerous varieties of artisan loaves in just a few minutes every day.
Basically, you are shown how to mix up a wet dough that is then allowed to rise for two or more hours.  After that initial rising time it can be kept in the refrigerator, covered, for up to a week. 
About an hour before dinner, just measure out a batch of the dough, gently shape it and let it stand for thirty minutes while the oven preheats.  Bake for twenty to thirty minutes and serve a delicious, artisan style bread with your meal.
With this technique you can mix up an entire week’s worth of bread on the weekend and have fresh, healthy bread all week.

But Does It Work?

I received this book as a gift. I have been very happy with the results.
I have enjoyed baking bread since I baked my first loaf in 1974.What I have not enjoyed is the sometimes lengthy process involved. This technique can be used easily, and with equally successful results, by anyone that can read and follow directions. With numerous variations you can have fresh bread for each meal without getting bored.
Publisher’s Weekly stated that experienced bread bakers would skip this book but as a bread baker with over 35 years experience I can tell you that experienced bread bakers will love this innovative approach as much as anyone else.
The resulting bread is not your run of the mill no-knead bread. The texture is chewy with large cavities, just like the European style loaves from your favorite bakery.

Basic Recipe

The basic recipe can be found at the authors’ blog, and is as follows:
Basic Artisan Bread
  • 3 cups lukewarm water
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
  • 6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • Cornmeal for the pizza peel
  1. Mix with a spoon in a large container with a cover.
  2. Let rise at room temperature for at least two, but not more than five hours.
  3. Keep in the refrigerator for up to a week, tearing off dough and baking as needed.
To Bake
  1. Preheat oven to 450F
  2. Place a pan of water in the oven. It will fill the oven with steam as it preheats.
  3. Leaving the water in place put the bread dough in the oven.
  4. Bake at 450F for about 20 minutes or until done.

Need more information? Check out Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day Blog.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day in the News

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How do you like this?

Black forest cake

 By Anncoo







Ingredients:

Chocolate Sponge Cake
3 Eggs
20g Water
165g Optima flour
48g Melted Butter
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp Chocolate paste
1/2 tbsp Chocolate emulco

Add eggs, water and optima flour and whisk at high speed till thick and fluffly then add vanilla extract, chocolate paste and chocolate emulco, mix well.
Lastly add in melted butter and mix well again.
Pour batter into a 8" round cake tin (lined) and bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 20-30 mins.
Remove sponge cake immediately from cake tin after baked and leave cake to cool then cut to 3 slices.

Mousse filling
60g Semi sweet chocolate - chop to small pieces
40g Whipping cream
100g Fresh topping cream and 85g Whipping cream
Preparation:

In a large bowl, chop semi sweet chocolate to small pieces. Boil 40g whipping cream and pour on to the chocolate pieces.

Use a hand whisk to stir chocolate cream till smooth or you can put the bowl of chocolate cream over a pot of hot water for 1 minute and stir chocolate cream till smooth and add 1 tsp vanilla extract, leave to cool.
Whisk 100g fresh topping cream together with 85 whipping cream till peak form (not too stiff) and fold into the chocolate cream with a hand whisk and put chocolate mousse in the fridge for few minutes till semi-set.

Topping
300g Fresh Topping cream - whip to peak form - for adding dark sweet cherries and covering the whole cake
1 small Canned Dark sweet cherries - drained

**Kirsch syrup - measure 150ml hot water with 50g sugar, still till sugar melted and leave to cool. Add in 1 tbsp of Kirschwasser (cherry liqueur) and mix well.

Assemble cake

Place the base of chocolate sponge on cake board and brush with some kirsch syrup.
Spread its top with whipped fresh cream and strew the dark sweet cherries over the fresh cream.
Place the 2nd layer of chocolate sponge on top of cherries, brush kirsch and spread semi-set chocolate mousse evenly on cake follow by the last slice of chocolate sponge with kirsch sugar syrup.
Finally spread whipped fresh cream all over the cake and decorate cake as desire or with red cherries on top of the cake and chocolate rice or flakes at the side.
How do you like this?