Baking Bread at Home

At any given time you will find this container in my extra fridge in my garage.  It has a 6 quart capacity and it came in a 2 pack.  This one holds my bread dough, the other one holds flour.  I actually have other containers for flour, but when I started baking bread, I purchased flour in larger quantities and so I have to fill not only my old canister, one of these too.

Last fall, I had read and tried some no-knead bread recipes with success.  As much as I enjoy baking, I usually avoided anything that involved yeast and kneading and waiting.  I'd thought about a bread machine, I know many people who love them, they often use them for the mixing, kneading and rising part of the task and then bake the bread in the oven.  But I just had not spent the money on one.  Then my friend Allison told me about a book devoted to no-knead bread.  I actually ordered it via my Amazon app right then and there and it arrived two days later.  And to be very cliche- The rest was history.

The basic idea behind no-knead bread is that you can just mix the ingredients together, cover and let rise and then bake them in a specific way that allows it to rise again and bake.  That's my very, very simple explanation.  There is some science involved with the moisture of the dough and letting rise and all that good stuff too.  The book that I have, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day has really changed my life.  It really does take just five minutes and I have really made more bread from scratch and not purchased bread at the store very often.  Not just this French style boule loaves in my photos, but sandwich bread and breakfast bread as well.

In the above photo, on the left is the dough right after I mixed it.  On the right is after it sat on the counter for about an hour.  It's actually ready to use after 2 hours, but it's a bit easier to work with if you then put it in the fridge and it gets cold.

This is a photo of one of my very first loaves.  I forgot to cut slits in the dough.  But it still turned out very nice.  I bake mine using Pampered Chef's stoneware covered baker, keeping it covered for part of the cooking time which creates the steam needed to create the crackling crust.  In the book they explain all about having the moisture (steam) in the baking process and how to achieve that.

Above is another close up photo of one of my more recent loaves that has the nice slit in the top and a crisp crackling crust.  On Christmas Eve I made several loaves and served them warm with a dish of good olive oil with a drizzle of thick balsamic vinegar mixed in for dipping.  Pure heaven!

This is a loaf of Cinnamon Raisin Bread.  I made this using the Buttermilk Bread recipe in the book.  Leftover slices of the bread also made delicious French Toast!  I have also made mini loaves that I paired with a jar of homemade pumpkin butter and gave those as teacher gifts at Christmas.

The primary reason the book titles says that you can make bread in five minutes a day is because when you mix the dough at the quantities given in the recipe, it's enough for several loaves, so after that initial mixing (which is also very easy to do by hand and takes just a few minutes) you let it rise, then you can put it away in the fridge and just pull out some to bake when you want.  Easy!  The secondary title of the book- The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking is the absolute truth.  It's made me want to try other breads and because I've purchases larger quantities of flour and yeast, I always have the ingredients on hand and it saves me money. Besides a large variety of bread recipes, the book includes recipes for dishes you can make with your bread.  It's just a fantastic resource and it's been living on my kitchen counter.   If you are at all interested in baking breads, I highly recommend you get this book.