I love home made bread; The aroma that fills the house, that first bite that permeates the senses, the crisp crust and soft, warm interior! Mmmmmm! I use to think that I couldn’t bake bread well, so I bought a bread maker in hopes that I would have more home baked bread. The results were mediocre and I stopped using it. Then I found a recipe for home baked bread that seemed pretty easy and realized that kneading the bread wasn’t really that bad. I made that recipe for a few months, but with the time it took to mix it, rise, knead, rise, bake…. I had to be home for most of the day to tend the bread. So, that recipe fell by the wayside. That’s why I was so excited to hear about this book. I can’t remember where I first learned about “Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day” but I was really excited when it finally arrived in the mail the other day. Their website had a number of contests to win a free book, but I couldn’t leave it to chance and bought one instead 🙂 Today I tried my hand at their master recipe and was Very Happy with the results! At 2 pm, I mixed together the flour, yeast, water, and salt, and let it sit on the counter. Then I planted some onions and picked up Kaia from school. When I got home, the mix had risen over twice it’s size and pushed the top off the container it was in. I cut off about a pound of dough from the mix, shaped it and let it rest while I feed Leif. (The rest of the mix, enough for 3 more loaves, went in the fridge where it can stay for for days, until I’m ready to cut off another hunk of it to cook up!) Then I plopped the dough in the oven and went out to plant the leeks. When I got back inside, the house smelled fantastic and there was a perfect loaf of bread ready for the tasting. I let it cool a little while and heated up the soup and greens for dinner. Here’s what the bread looked like just out of the oven
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Thirty minutes later, there was still some soup and greens on the stove, but…

… the bread had disappeared! Kaia even ate her salad without a complaint because she knew she could have more bread once the salad was gone! She said “Mommy, this is just like store bought bread, and that’s a good thing!!” Ohhhh, it was so good! It had a great crispy crust and was soft and fluffy on the inside! The taste was almost sourdoughy!! I’m a little worried that I’m going to have to put limits on the amount of bread we eat in the house, ’cause at this rate, we could have a couple loaves of bread a day!! MMmmmmm
After the master recipe, the book give you lots more recipes that work off the main one… sweet breads, peasant loaves, flat breads, etc…
Now I have to decide which of the tons of recipes in the book I’m going to try next!!