When I downloaded the book "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day," I was more than a little skeptical. But it turns out my skepticism has been proved wrong.
This book has a base recipe for dough that takes about 10 minutes to throw together in a bowl. Your wait time and rising times and oven heating times are not counted in the "5 minutes," but they are also not working time.
You start with the basic dough, super super simple i.e. 1.5 Tablespoons yeast, 1.5 Tablespoons coarse salt, 3 cups lukewarm water and 6.5 cups of all-purpose flour. It rises in a covered, but not air tight bowl for 2 hours. Then you can either make some bread or put it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Every time you wish to have fresh bread, you have to think about 1.5 hours ahead, but that's all you need. You pull off a hunk of dough, make a loaf, let it rest for 40 minutes, preheat your oven to 450 degrees for the last 20 of those 40 minutes, stick it in the oven on a pizza stone, add some water to a broiler pan in the bottom, bake for 30 minutes and you have amazing artisan bread.
Each batch makes 4 small loaves... enough for dinner or two average loaves, enough for dinner and breakfast or lunch.
Loving the comfort food!!!
