Give us our daily bread

As you probably already know, I love pizza. And one of the reasons I love pizza so much is because I love bread, and what is pizza but bread with tomato sauce and cheese on it? Mark and I are fortunate to live in an area where there are many artisan bakeries like Acme, Semifreddi, Arizmendi and La Farine turning out fine products. And while I like to have a loaf always on hand, it's difficult because they go stale within a day or two. A couple of years ago I found a great 'almost no-knead' bread recipe in Cooks Illustrated which we used a fair amount for awhile. The two problems with that particular recipe for me were a) it required a small amount of beer, which we didn't always have on hand, and b) even though you only had to knead it a little, it required at least eight hours of resting time, which meant that you had to plan ahead if you wanted a fresh loaf of bread.

For Christmas this year, I got Mark a book called "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. This book is the real deal, folks. You will not believe how easy it is to make your own bread at home, without a fancy machine, without even so much as a stand mixer. All you need is water, salt, yeast, flour, a wooden spoon to mix it with and a container big enough to store the dough. Oh, and a pizza peel and pizza stone helps, too.

The idea behind "bread in five minutes a day" is that you make a large batch of dough and keep it in the fridge. Anytime you want a fresh loaf of bread, you just cut yourself off a piece of dough, let it rest for a bit (between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on what you're making), throw it in the oven and voila! Fresh bread, and it only took you five minutes of active working time to shape the loaf. 

No kidding, this book has been a game changer. We make pizza at home at least once a week. No longer do we have to make a special trip to Trader Joe's or the Pasta Shop to pick up pizza dough. No waiting for four hours of rising time like traditional pizza dough recipes. No more 'slumming it' with plain old sandwich bread when we want an accompaniment to a pasta dish. And because we can control the size of the loaves we make, no more baguettes turning into bricks after three days and going to waste.

A few people have asked for the bread recipe, so I'm going to post it here. But please don't let that stop you from purchasing this wonderful book. You'll need it to get the recipes for all of the other variations you can do: baguettes, ciabatta, batards, bagels, brioche, even cinnamon rolls and beignets all can be made in the comfort of your own kitchen.

The Master Recipe: Boule (artisan free form loaf)

Makes four 1-pound loaves

3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (any kind)
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
6 1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached all-purpose white flour
corn meal for the pizza peel

Mixing and Storing the Dough

1. Warm the water to approximately 100 degrees F. Using warm water will rise the dough in about two hours. Cold water works also but the rising time will be longer - three to four hours.

2. Add yeast and salt in a five-quart bowl, or a resealable, lidded plastic food container. Don't worry about getting it to dissolve.

3. Mix in the flour. KNEADING IS UNNECESSARY. Mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture is uniformly moist, without dry patches.

4. Allow to rise. Cover with a lid (not airtight) that fits well to the container that you're using. (I use a plastic Tuppeware-like container, and I place the lid on it but DON'T seal the lid.) Do not use screw topped bottles or Mason jars as they could explode from the gasses being trapped. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or flattens on the top), approximately two hours. You can start using it anytime after this period, but the dough is easier to work with when cold - so it's recommended to refrigerate it for at least three hours the first time you make it.

On Baking Day

5. Shape the loaf. First, sprinkle the pizza peel with cornmeal to prevent the loaf from sticking to it when you slide it into the oven. If you don't have a pizza peel, parchment paper will work too. Sprinkle the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour. Then pull up and cut off a one-pound piece (about the size of a grapefruit) with a serrated knife. Add a little more flour to the piece so it doesn'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 turn as you go. DO NOT KNEAD! The bottom of the dough will look like a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out later so don't worry about it. The correctly shaped final product will be smooth and cohesive.

6. Rest the loaf and let it rise on a pizza peel. Allow to rest for about 40 minutes (it does not need to be covered).  You will probably not see much rise during this period.

7. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, with a baking stone placed in the center rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other shelf that won't interfere with the rising bread.

8. When the bread is done resting, dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour, then slash a 1/4 inch deep cross or tic tac toe pattern into the top with a serrated bread knife.

9. After a 20 minute preheat, you're ready to bake (even though your oven might not be up to the full temperature yet). With a quick forward jerking motion of the wrist, slide the loaf of the pizza peel and on to the baking stone. Quickly and carefully pour one cup of water into the broiler pan and shut the oven as quickly as possible to trap the steam. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

10. Store the remaining dough in the refrigerator in your lidded (but not airtight) container and use it over the next 14 days. Even one day's worth of storage improves the flavor and texture of the bread. When you've used up all the dough, DON'T wash the storage container. Mix your next batch directly into the same container. The aged dough stuck to the sides of it will give your new batch a head start on sourdough flavor. Just scrape it down and incorporate into the new dough.

And there you have it, kids. Quick, simple and very inexpensive. We graduated from boule to baguettes, and I've even made bagels a couple of times (the second batch turned out much better than the first). We plan to experiment with the olive oil dough recipe next time out and at some point I hope to be turning out some bakery quality cinnamon rolls. You can do all this too...but you'll need to buy the book first to get the details.