Five Minute Replay

The "Five Minute" bread adventure continues. The third loaf seemed to be coming along pretty well, other than getting a little darker than I would prefer. That loaf went along as part of a traditional housewarming gift...

• Bread - that this house may never know hunger.


• Salt - that life may always have flavor.


• Wine - that joy and prosperity may reign forever.

The fourth and final loaf of the first batch of dough was baked in my cast iron dutch oven instead of on the baking tiles. I like this method because I don't have to mess with the pan of water for stream. The crust was perfect, crisp and chewy, but the texture inside was still pretty dense. I think I'm having a problem with the dough needing to rise a little more, which is a challenge in our rather chilly house.

Before I even baked the final loaf, I started a new batch of dough. This one I replaced one cup of the white flour with some King Arthur wheat flour. We'll see how the new twist affects the loaf. I think I'll make an effort to give it a warm place to let it rise a bit more.

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...