Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day
Makes four 1-pound loaves. The recipe is easily doubled or halved.
3 cups lukewarm water
1 ½ tablespoons granulated yeast (1 ½ packets)
1 ½ tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt (reduced by one quarter if using table salt)
6 ½ cups unsifted, unbleached, all purpose white flour, measured with the scoop and sweep method
Cornmeal for pizza peel
Mixing dough and storing dough
1. Warm the water slightly: It should feel just a little warmer than body temperature, about 100 degrees. Warm water will rise the dough to the right point for storage in about 2 hours. You can use cold tap water and get an identical final result; then the first rising will take 3 or even 4 hours. That won’t be too great a difference, as you will only be doing this once per stored batch.
2. 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.
3. Mix in the flour – kneading is unnecessary: Add all of the flour at once. measuring it in with dry-ingredients measuring cups, by gently scooping up flour, then sweeping the top level with a knife or spatula, don’t press down into the flour as you scoop or you’ll throw off the measurements by compressing. 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. If you’re hand-mixing and it becomes too difficult to incorporate all the flour with the spoon, you can reach into your mixing vessel with very wet hands and press the mixture together. Don’t knead! It isn’t necessary. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches. This step is done in a matter of minutes, and will yield a dough that is wet and loose enough to conform to the shape of its container.
4. All to rise: Cover with a lid (not airtight) that fits well to the container you’re using. Do not use screw-topped bottles or Mason jars, which could explode from the trapped gases. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or at least flattens on the top), approximately 2 hours, depending on the room’s temperature. Longer rising times, up to about 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 easier to work with than dough at room temperature. So, the first time you try our method, it’s best to refrigerate the dough overnight (or at least 3 hours), before shaping a loaf.
On Baking Day
5. The gluten cloak: don’t knead, just “cloak” and shape a loaf in 30 to 60 seconds. First, prepare a pizza peel by sprinkling it liberally with cornmeal (or whatever your recipe calls for) to prevent your loaf from sticking to it when you slide it into the oven. Sprinkle the surface of your refrigerated 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 of a turn as you go. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it’s not intended to be incorporated into the dough. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out and adhere during resting and baking. The correctly shaped final product will be smooth and cohesive. The entire process should take no more than 30 to 60 seconds.
6. Rest the loaf and let it rise on a pizza peel: Place the shaped ball on the cornmeal-covered pizza peel. Allow the loaf to rest on the peel for about 40 minutes (it doesn’t need to be covered during the rest period.) Depending on the age of the dough, you may not see much rising during this period; more rising will occure during baking (“oven spring”).
7. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, with a baking stone placed in the middle rack. Place empty broiler tray for holding water on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread.
8. Dust and slash: Unless otherwise indicated in a specific recipe, dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour, which will allow the slashing knife to pass without sticking. Slash a 1/4 –inch-deep cross, “scallop”, or a tick-tac-toe pattern into the top using a serrated bread knife.
9. Baking with steam: After a 20-minute preheat, you’re ready to bake, even though your oven thermometer won’t yet be up to full temperature. With a quick forward jerking motion of the wrist, slide the loaf off the pizza peel and onto the preheated baking stone. Quickly but carefully 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 about 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. Because you’ve used wet dough, there is a little risk of drying out the interior, despite the dark crust. When you remove the loaf from the oven, it will audibly crackle, or “sing” when initially expose to room-temperature air. Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire cooling rack, for best flavor, texture, and slicing. The perfect crust may initially soften, but will firm up again when cooled.
10. Store the remaining dough in the refrigerator in your lidded (not airtight) container and use over the next 14 days: You’ll find that even one day improves the flavor and texture of your bread. This maturation continues over the 14-day storage period. We often have several types of dough storing in the refrigerator at once. The dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking.
Dough Moisture Content
| If you modify a recipe, using . . . | |
| . . .more liquid (giving you a wetter dough), you’ll get . . . | . . . less liquid (giving you drier dough), you’ll get . . . |
| Larger air holes | Smaller air holes |
| Desirable “custard” interior, can become gummy if too little flour is used or too much whole grain is included. | Difficult to achieve custard interior, interior will be drier. |
| May be difficult for free-form loaf to hold shape, may spread laterally, but will do very well in loaf pans. | Free-form loaves will hold shape well and remain high and domed. |
| Requires less resting time before baking. | Require more resting time before baking. |
Resting and Baking Times
All of our resting and baking times are approximate. Since loaves are formed by hand, their size will vary from loaf to loaf. There can be significant changes in resting and baking time requirements with changes in loaf sizes. Although large, flat loaves bake rapidly, large, high domed loaves will require dramatically longer baking times. Here are some basic guidelines for varying resting and baking times and oven temperatures on the characteristic of that day’s loaf:
| Increase resting and baking time if any of the following apply: Large loaf More whole grain Wetter Dough | Adjust baking temperature based on dough ingredients: Non-enriched doughs made mostly from white flour 450 degrees Egg, honey, or brioche dough 350 degrees High whole wheat content (more than 50 percent) 350 degrees |
1 comment:
Mom and I made this while she was here and it was yummy. Matt even liked it and he is not usually into that type of bread Thanks for sharing the recipe since Mom took your book back with her! Now I can make some more!
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