Sunday, November 8, 2009

Artisan bread

I love home-baked bread. I enjoy baking bread. But I about the only time I actually make yeast bread (other than in the bread machine) is at Thanksgiving and Christmas, when I make rolls.
I saw a book a couple of months ago for making artisan breads without all the fuss:
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. I finally decided to buy the book this week, and have read it cover-to-cover. The premise is to make a bread dough that is very wet, doesn't need kneading, and keeps well in the refrigerator. You make a batch of dough, let it rise for a couple of hours, then put it in the fridge until you're ready to bake - take out a hunk of dough, shape it, let it rest for a little while, then put it in the oven - voila, homemade bread. Sounds great to me. I need a 5-qt container that will fit in the refrigerator for storing the dough, so will have to find one of those; I threw out all the mis-matched Tupperware last time I organized the kitchen cabinets, and that's where I had some larger containers. I did find a pizza peel (for letting the dough rise) at the kitchen store in the farmer's market yesterday, and I know where my pizza stone is, so other than the container for the dough, I'm set. I plan to make a batch of dough today.

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