Craft #7: My Daily Bread

I know I said that I wasn't going to count making food as my craft of the month, but bread is different; I had never before in my life baked bread with yeast, sans bread maker. BTW - not sure if I've ever mentioned it... but I ♥ bread. Love it!!

Several months ago I heard about the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day written by Jeff Hertzberg, MD and Zoe Francois [both are Minnesotans!]. I've looked at the book several times on Amazon but haven't yet purchased it. The basis behind their process is mix together the ingredients, let the dough rise and then refrigerate the dough for up to 14 days - using dough as needed to bake bread. What a great way to introduce myself to bread baking no need to knead, rest/rise and repeat!

I got really excited about this possibility, so I googled the book and found a site where Jeff had provided the basic master dough recipe along with instructions. I had all four ingredients on hand and instantly mixed together the dough.

{ingredients: flour, kosher salt, yeast + water}
{the dough, immediately after mixing}
{the dough, after 90 minutes of rising}

{the dough, after 120 minutes of rising}

{bread, immediately after going in the oven}

{bread, almost done baking}

{finished product, cooling}
{check out that crumb!}

I baked my first loaf of bread!! I am not good with shaping the loaf, but my first attempt was identifiable as bread {a plus} and tasted really good {huge bonus}. I've made a few other loaves since this one and they have all turned out... minus the misshapen-ness.

In a few months I hope to tackle bread that requires kneading, resting, rising and shaping, but for now I'm pretty happy about this version. I am my own bread-maker - so cool!!