Jeff and Zoë wrote Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day so that baking homemade bread would be easy enough to become a daily ritual for everyone. That includes people struggling to balance work, family, friends, and social life (pretty much all of us). They developed their method of refrigerator-stored artisan dough while juggling career and home.
Simple Crusty Bread (Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day)
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cook time: 25-30 minutes
preparation time: 5 minutes
inactive/rest time: 2 hours to 14 days
servings: 4 small loaves
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1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough
3 cups water 100′
corn meal
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Adapted from “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day,” by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007)
Time: About 45 minutes plus about 3 hours’ resting and rising
1. In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours).
2. Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.
3. Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.
4. Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.
Yield: 4 loaves.
Variation: If not using stone, stretch rounded dough into oval and place in a greased, nonstick loaf pan. Let rest 40 minutes if fresh, an extra hour if refrigerated. Heat oven to 450 degrees for 5 minutes. Place pan on middle rack.
1 response so far ↓
gastronomy101 // March 19, 2008 at 11:19 am
I think most of you are using a recipe that was printed in a newspaper article and I’m not sure how well they stressed to handle the dough as little as possible. The trick to getting a really nice crumb with this method is three fold. Well there is probably more but this is a good start:
One, let the dough store for at least 2 days to really let it ferment. It improves the taste considerably and the crumb. If you bake it on the first day you will have a mild flavor and a tight crumb.
Two, handle the dough as little as possible. We say to shape it for 30-60 seconds but that is even too long. It should be about 20 seconds. Experienced bakers have a tendency to want to knead. This knocks out all of the gas that has built up during the storing and will make the dough dense. So less is more in this case.
Three, the hydration level of our dough, although we avoid terms like that in the book, is about 75% if you are using average unbleached all-purpose flour. If you switch to KA all-purpose the protein level is much higher and you will want to increase the hydration to 81%. This means you will be adding about 1/4 more water to the dough. It should be wet and sticky, unlike traditional doughs. If it is too dry the crumb will be dense and it won’t store for as long.
This is also true of WW flours that you add to the dough. If you replace some of the AP for WW then increase the hydration. WW absorbs way more water and will make for a dry dough.
The crust:
We say to bake the bread in the middle of the oven on a baking stone preheated to 450 degrees (flat heat). Throw a cup of hot water on a broiler tray that is on the bottom rack and shut the door. I read your debate about water vs ice cubes and I have to say that as long as you are doing it in the beginning of the baking process we haven’t found much of a difference. I personally prefer the results of the water over the ice, but do what you like best!
Someone mentioned using less yeast. You can do this but just remember that you have to increase all of the resting times significantly.
The resting times in the book are based on a 1 pound loaf which is really pretty small. If your loaf is any bigger than that then you need to allow more resting time on the peel before it goes in the oven. This is also true if your kitchen is particularly cool and the dough isn’t warming up quickly enough.
We say that the dough can rest for as little as 40 minutes for a 1 pound boule of the master recipe. It certainly won’t hurt it to rest for up to an hour, longer for a cool kitchen.
I’m sure I missed some things you have been discussing. I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions I can.
Thanks again for trying the bread! The pictures you have posted are fantastic. It is so much fun to see how people are using the recipes.
Thanks, Zoe Francois