Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Five Minute Bandwagon

I put it off as long as I could, but I finally had to jump on the "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes" bandwagon. I haven't bought the book yet, but there was an article with the basic instructions in the December Mother Earth News that gave me the jump-start I needed.

I mixed my dough on Monday, then made my first loaf yesterday...

It wasn't beautiful and the texture was pretty heavy, very fine grained with few large air pockets. I fussed around for a while and finally figured out that my over was running 25° low. Grrr...that would explain the funky rise and weird texture. But, needless to say we ate it anyway, I mean, its bread!
Then today I tried it again, with the oven temp corrected...

Hmmm, a definite improvement, though not too sure what caused the little blowout on the bottom. The texture is much better and with the extra day, the flavor is developing as well. Sean thinks it a little "yeasty." But I wouldn't mind a little more flavor still. Will see what the next loaf brings...

5 comments:

Claire MW said...

Oh my, I just HAD to be reading this before I have eaten supper, while I am hungry, and now all I can think of is bread. Big warm hunks of bread with butter and honey. Mmmmm....

Miss Effie said...

Hang in there. It took me a while too. I was used to doing the no-knead dough and I love this -- but there is a bit of a learning curve.

And oven temp is a biggie -- my oven also ran 25-30 degrees lower. So does my friend Gwen's -- she has been selling the roasted garlic and potato bread at market on Sat. Big hit!

And it gets better the longer you keep it in the fridge - up to 2 weeks.

Karen said...

I've been using this recipe for at least a month now and just love it! The flavor continues to improve the longer the dough is in the fridge.
There's nothing like the smell - or the taste! - of fresh, homemade bread.

jag said...

Well done! It does seem to take a while to tweak to perfection, but the result is worth it.
Lovely pictures, btw!

girlwithasword said...

i agree - the longer the dough is in the fridge the better it gets. Boy your loaves are more picturesque than mine! *mental note to self: don't put photos of my bread online....*