I got Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
for Christmas, and I'm on my fourth or fifth batch now. It took a little adjusting to the idea of wet dough, but once I got the consistency right, everything has turned out excellent. I love baking bread, but I can appreciate the time saving factor anyway, because it makes it so easy to make something every day. The only drawback is that it makes me want to buy a bunch of stuff: a larger container so I don't have to keep making new batches, a pizza peel and baking stone (which I should probably have anyway), new flour canisters, cut bread serving platters... Okay, maybe that's just me.I made the Olive Fougasse from the olive oil dough. It is excellent and beautiful, and even easier to make than some of the other breads. It is basically focaccia bread with olives mixed it. I took it to a gathering, and felt like a heel every time I said, "fougasse," but everyone liked it anyway.
I have been baking with these books since the first one came out and I LOVE them! I think you need all three of those things, but if you can't do them all at once I'd start with the larger bucket. I have a large bucket, a medium bucket, and a small bucket (they get rotated between dough and fresh flour). The small ones are still useful for when you just want to make a half-batch of something to try out.
ReplyDeleteA pizza stone really does give you a nice crispy crust (and they're great for pizza, cookies, whatever) and while I used cutting boards for probably the last two years in lieu of a pizza peel, the real thing makes sliding your bread onto the stone a piece of cake! You can get both on Amazon for fairly little money.
Happy baking!! Can't wait to hear what you think of the challah and brioche doughs. Homemade doughnuts FTW!
Even though I've been retired into gluten free baking, I still have all the tools from bread baking days. The pizza peel we still use for GF pizza, and the stone is used all the time. We never used buckets for rising, it just went in a bowl with some olive oil and a wet towel over the top. And why bother with a server? It will need to be washed after holding bread for 10 minutes!
ReplyDeleteAnna - for this method you mix up a lot of dough ahead of time, and use bits of it over two weeks. so you need a container to keep the dough in the fridge.
ReplyDeleteand I just like pretty serving platters. :)
wow.
ReplyDeletei just read the intro, and i want it... NOW!
I have this book too! I absolutely love it! I want all the "extras" now too. :) I keep trying to tell Derek that I *need* them-but he hasn't got on that train yet. I did however, get a baking stone for my birthday! It is awesome-but one thing leads to another, so now I *need* a peel. :)
ReplyDelete