Bibliography: Hertzberg, Jeff, and Zoe Francois. (2007).  Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN: 978-0312362911

Review:  While I am a fairly accomplished cook, and a very good baker, one thing I never conquered in the kitchen was the making of yeast bread.  When I was very small, my mother baked bread every week, often several kinds.  When I got older, she didn’t bake as much, but my dad would bake bread on the weekends, or sometimes angel biscuits for special meals.  I did try a couple of times.  I remember a children’s cook book we had where you made bread dough and broke off different sized balls of dough and made the shapes of fat teddy bears.  Another time I was taking a home economics class in intermediate school and tackled a savory pull apart or monkey bread.  Both times the results were the same–hard lumps of dough that refused to rise.

After that, I just decided that making yeast bread wasn’t for me, that I was wasting ingredients and time.  But I always secretly wanted to make beautiful loaves of bread, and rolls, and sweet breads.  But hey, I could make the best biscuits and they always turned out no matter what.  Then my best friend from high school (just about the only person I have kept up with over the years) told me about a revolutionary method and book:  Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  She assured me it was pretty much fool proof, and pointed me to the master recipe in the New York Times and also to this online forum where Francois answered many reader questions.  I didn’t have a baking stone or a large container to hold and store the dough, but I did have a cast iron skillet and a large bowl, and that was enough to get me started.

I mixed up half a recipe of the master dough the first time.  I was still in the mindset that if it didn’t work, I didn’t want to waste the ingredients.  I put the cast iron skillet upside down on the oven rack and an empty metal broiler pan underneath preheated the oven.  I tore off my dough and shaped it into a ball, placing it on a piece of parchment paper to rest.  (This was probably the hardest part for me, the shaping or “gluten cloak”ing of the dough, but my friend pointed out a video here, and with practice, it became much easier.)  After resting, I picked up the dough still on the parchment paper, placed it on the hot skillet and added the water to the broiler pan.  I closed the oven dough and hoped for the best.  Turning on the oven light, I was amazed to see the dough springing up.  Success at last!  And it tasted phenomenal.

After several tries and not failing once, I decided I needed to get a baking stone and a large container with a lid.  After looking around, and talking with my friend, (no, I didn’t want a circular stone, as that made it harder to bake long loves like baguettes) I got this one, and I love it.  The container was a little harder, as I knew I wanted a certain size and shape to go in the refrigerator.  I finally found this one, and the squared off sides were perfect, as it made it easier to stick on the shelf.  I also bought the book, and read it from cover to cover.  Why buy the book when I had the master recipe already?  The book has all kinds of tips and hints for making the best loaf from this recipe, as well as tons of variations and kinds of bread and recipes using bread dough.  Because this method relies heavily on chemistry to work, the authors have already figured all of that out for you.  And if you want to try it out for yourself, then having the book helps you understand the processes as well.  (It has a lot to do with the flour you buy and the amount of liquid you use.)

So why did this work for me?  I would say for several reasons.  First of all, because the dough rises very slowly on the counter, it doesn’t need to have hot water to work, and you can even use cold water, the rise just takes longer.  So I can’t kill the yeast by accident.  Secondly,  no kneading.  Finally the rise is only part of the equation, the second part comes after the dough has rested and when it is placed on the stone in the hot oven–oven spring.  That means no worries about whether the dough is doubled or tripled in size, no punching down, and so on.  I have been reading the authors’ blog, and was excited to see that  they have a new book coming out in October:  Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. (I have gained so much confidence in my ability, that I have now made several recipes with yeast the conventional way and been successful every time.)

Readalikes:  Kneadlessly Simple:  Fabulous, Fuss-Free, No-Knead Breads by Nancy Baggett

Review Excerpts:  “The authors’ style is straightforward and unintimidating, and their book is sure to make many new bread-baking converts.”–Library Journal

“While experienced bakers and true gourmands will skip this one, those looking for an innovative approach to making bread just might find it in these recipes.”–Publisher’s Weekly