Customer Reviews
Fresh Bread in Time for Dinner or Even Breakfast!
Amanda Evans of Oregon, 5/2/2011
I grew up with homemade bread so when I got married I wanted to make my own. But I was never very good at the whole mix, knead, rise, form, rise again, bake... It was too time consuming and I wasn't organized enough to get it started in time. Loaf after loaf turned out heavy or flat because I hadn't kneaded right or I'd let it rise too long (or too short) or the water had been to hot and it had killed the yeast.
Then all my friends began talking about some bread-baking method that was "so easy!" I was skeptical. They probably were just really good at making bread. Then I ate a slice (or two or six). Yum! Could I make bread like this too? When I acquired this cookbook I examined the recipe and with some trepidation I mixed my first batch of dough. 5 minutes later, I was done. It really was as easy as they said!
Since then I have (almost) always had a container of dough sitting in my fridge waiting to be made into crunchy-on-the-outside, fluffy-on-the-inside artisan bread. We've had it for dinner, we've had it for breakfast (hot out of the oven!), and I've come home from church on a Sunday and served pizza on the spur of the moment. Mostly I just use the master recipe (which I make into loaves, rolls, pizza, and pita). For Easter Sunday, though, I made the brioche dough and used it for cinnamon rolls. Oh. My. Word. Best cinnamon rolls ever!
The method is not quite 5 minutes from mixing it up to pulling it out of the oven. After you spend a few minutes mixing the (few) ingredients together, you let it rest on the counter. Wait a minute, you say, I wanted to get away from all this time-sensitive stuff! That's the beauty of this approach: it puts the "art" back in artisan bread-baking. The dough should sit until it rises and flattens at the top (about 2 hours) but I've let mine sit out all night because I forgot to put it in the fridge after the movie ended. Then, after the dough has chilled and you form a loaf to serve with tonight's soup, it does need to rest on the counter a bit before you stick it in the hot oven. But I've let mine sit just as long as it taks the oven to preheat. Despite all my imprecision, I still get good results.
As a busy mom of three (almost four) little kids, this cookbook has made bread-baking doable for me. Buy it today. Your family will thank you.
You Read That Right, 5 Minutes A Day!
HappyHomemaker of Oregon, 4/14/2011
I have always wanted to bake all our bread, but devoting two solid hours at a time for a loaf or two wasn't working out so well. Then this marvel entered my life, and I haven't even opened my other bread book for a year. The concept is simple: mix together a list of ingredients (five minutes and 2 utensils to wash), let rest 2 hours (while you live your life), and slip in the fridge. When you want bread, take as much dough as you want, form the loaf, let it rest, then bake. Then try not to eat the whole thing before it gets to your family table. On second thought, maybe you should bake two. But therein lies the beauty. You CAN bake two loaves, or just one. Maybe you don't want bread tomorrow, but the next day you do. No problem. The dough is safely in the fridge, and stays good for 14 days (depending on the recipe). Not that mine EVER lasts 14 days.
This book has recipes for artisan free-form loaves, sandwich loaves, enriched breads (which you can use for pastries), rye breads, wheat breads, flat breads... and more! One of my favorite things is that most of the recipes are incredibly versatile. With the same batch of dough you can make free-form loaves, pizza, baguettes, or cinnamon rolls!
So, after a busy day what is more heartening than the smell of fresh baked bread? I'll tell you: eating it.