Starting in the Basement

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Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

Our fridge is overflowing with bread dough!  Every bowl is being used and sometimes it even gets a little out of hand.

I picked up this book at the library and am having a fabulous time with it.  It really makes bread making easy and while I’m sure the bread could be better with a lot more time and effort, it is good enough.  And they estimate it is about 50 cents per loaf which is super cheap for the quality.

This brioche dough has a mind of its own.  This dough just wouldn’t stop!!  Even after I took out a loafs worth, the remaining dough is still filling the whole bowl.  While the brioche is very tasty my favorites so far have been the olive oil dough and the epi dough. The olive oil dough makes an amazing foccacia.

Before

After

Cut it into strips and dip it in olive oil/balsamic vinegar as an appetizer.  Yum.  Or, add some proscuitto and mozarella for a fabulous sandwich.

The epi is impressive looking (although I haven’t mastered the technique yet).

Before cutting and baking

After cutting into the epi (wheat stalk) shape

After bakingI could show the picture while eating except apparently Frenchie and I came home from boozing Friday night and ate almost the whole thing.  Oops!  But yumm.

This light whole wheat bread below was really easy to make, is slightly healthier and I just had a slightly warm piece with butter and it was heavenly.

This book is super easy to use.  You just mix warm water with yeast then add salt and flour for the basic dough.  Let it rise for two hours and then you are ready to make bread!  If you are interested in any of these recipes I can email you but I suggest you check out the whole book because so far everything has been good.  My brother has made more so maybe he’ll share his favorites if he’s reading. ??