December 27, 2007 - 8:20am
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day
The publishers seem to have greatly underestimated demand for this book. Amazon.com and Borders are both out of stock, and the copies ordered by the Orange County Library system are not in yet.
Colin
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Indeed. Jeff said they are about to go into the fourth printing and that (knock on wood) it should be showing up again on Amazon and elsewhere in mid-January.
This book is available at barnesandnoble.com
A few hours after my original post I checked Amazon.com again, and their status had changed from expected in on Jan. 4 to in stock. So I put in an order.
Colin
I've made the rye and and Italian Semolina from the book. Both very good - I think it's worth a look...
Trish
I will be honest, I haven't even heard of this bread. What is the big deal? What makes this book better than any of the others?
The two things that distinquish this bread are that it's practically no knead (I did do a little stretch and fold at the end of the rise time)...and it can be reserved in the fridge for up to eight days. Since there are only two of us here most times you can keep a full batch (four loaves) at the ready in the fridge or the "cold room" (in this case my very cold garage) and then take a pound or so and warm up a bit, shape and rise a bit and you've got fresh bread for dinner. For those of us who work all day this is a real help.
Trish
My main interest is the claim that the dough can be refrigerated for longer than I have seen recommmended elsewhere. For example, in BBA Reinhart says his pate fermente and some other recipes can be refrigerated for up to three days. Hertzberg says up to 14 days for his method.
I am wondering if Reinhart was just being cautious when saying three days, or if Hertzberg has a different technique that allows a longer period, or what?
I don't feel a need to go up to 14 days, but refrigerating dough for 4-7 days would give greater flexibility for preparing dough on weekends to bake fresh bread during the week. I want to read the details of what Hertzberg has to say.
Colin
I'm sorry I meant that I had never heard of the BOOK not the bread (blush) that's what I meant ;) sorry.
What's the big deal with this BOOK...
TableBread, what makes this book different is that the recipes in this book are no knead. They are mixed up with a spoon in just enough stirs to incorporate the ingredients. The recipe you have chosen is then left on the counter a couple of hours and then put in the fridge until you wish to remove enough for a loaf, up to 14 days in some recipes.
There are several different main recipes and then variations you can do to achieve different kinds of bread from each recipe. When you get ready to make the bread you just shape, wait, and bake, no kneading.
An example would be the flat breads. There is a main recipe and it can be used to make foccacia, or pizza, or other breads requiring a similar recipe.
I don't know if there is something I am doing wrong, but as I have said in other message threads, I am usually ending up with loaves that are excessively moist inside. My wife likes their whole wheat recipe, but told me the last one was not good, partly because of excessive moisture.
When I tried their peasant loaf, to get the interior to a good temperature (just over 200 degrees) I had to bake it so long that the exterior was rock hard. And the interior still seemed moist to me.
If anyone had this problem and got past it, I would like to hear their solution.
Colin
Colin, it sounds like your oven isn't as hot as it should be. I had this problem a while back and bought an oven thermometer. When I checked it against the dial on my oven, my oven was about 50 degrees cooler than the dial said it was. I've re-marked my dial and haven't had a problem with my crumb since then.
We'll check the oven temp tonight or tomorrow.
Colin
Has anyone tried a pizza crust from one of the doughs in this book? I looked at the website and didn't find any reference there. I assume it should work OK.
I used the olive oil dough to make foccacia last night. It was a nice flavorful bread and I kept thinking it would make really good pizza crust. I am going to use the remainder of the dough for that tonight.
When I make the boules I do them in my cast iron chicken fryer with a domed lid. I let the loaf set out about and hour on parchment paper, then I pick the loaf up with the paper and place it and the loaf in the pre heated cast iron pot and put the lid on. I pre heat it to 475. When I put it back in the oven with the bread, I turn it down to 450 for 15 min., then 425 for 15 min.. then I take the lid off for about 15 min. I take it out sooner if it is looking done. I have not had a bad loaf with this method. I have made 1 lb. and 1.5 lb. loaves.
I've made several recipes from the book so far, including pizza, red pepper fougasse, epi, rye and olive bread. I can't begin to tell you how good the red pepper fougasse was. All I did was put roasted red bells in it (with a bit of salt and thyme), and it tasted like it had cheese in it, too! It was better than I could have anticipated. I'm still working my way through the book. Haven't tried any of the enriched doughs yet, but I'll get there.
Here are the loaves from yesterday's baking session:
Olive bread and pain d'epi
I just finished a half WW batch of dough that was quite good. Our pizza got postponed, and I can't wait to try the red pepper fougasse!
The red pepper fougasse is not only really good, but it's a whole lot easier to make than I thought it would be. I didn't even think of putting goat cheese in it, but that sure does sound good! The interesting thing about the fougasse I made, strictly as per the recipe, was that it had a definite cheese vibe. I made it and knew there wasn't any cheese in it, but still, each bite had something about it that tricked the mind into thinking there was a bit of cheese in it. I shared this loaf with a couple of friends and they both thought there was cheese in it.
It was such a hit, I'm making another one tomorrow.
Made the pizza with the olive oil dough. It was very good. I did prebake the dough because I had a little trouble stretching it as thin as we like it. It tasted great and had great texture. I will use again.
I've noticed that it's very easy to deflate this dough while shaping if I'm a bit too vigorous. So after shaping my first loaf from the last batch, I folded the dough before returning to the refrigerator. I think it helped. Since I baked all the dough the next time, I didn't do any more folds.
Has anyone else tried folding this dough, either during the initial fermentation or a a later point? How has it affected your results?
I had mixed up a batch of the semolina bread last week. After the dough had been in the fridge for about three days, I cut off a hunk and did a few folds before shaping it. Also proofed it for over three hours because I forgot about it.
The loaf had a nice oven spring and a more open cumb, which I had not experienced using the no-fold/short-proof suggestions in the book. I definitely will do the folds in the future and longer proofs.
I pulled off and shaped the hunk I wanted to bake that day, then pulled the rest out and folded and replaced in container. The rolls I baked from this folded-and-refrigerated-a-few-days dough rose better than the first loaf I baked but they may have had more proofing time. I'd read comments that the doughs have better rise early on than they do towards the end of the batch, and I thought this might help.
I like the idea of proofing overnight! Do you shape and refrigerate or do some counter proofing first?