The other day Dom sent me this article: Artisian Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I love fresh-baked bread. I love baking. I love the idea of baking every day. But I just don’t have the time. At most I seem to be able to bake a loaf one a week.
This, if it tastes good, would seem to be the answer.
On Saturday I mixed up the flour, water, salt and yeast right before nap time. I made the basic boule recipe, substituting white whole wheat for two cups of the flour. A little fiddling was necessary—adding water to get the dough to be as sticky as the recipe said it should be.
I let it rise for several hours, loosely covered then shoved it into the refrigerator. This morning I pulled it out, scooped out a lump and shaped it into a ball, put it on a semolina dusted pizza peel to rise for 40 minutes. Then I baked it for half an hour.
This was very easy. Definitely do-able with my weekly schedule.
The result: Pretty good.
A smallish loaf. About what we’d need for one day.
The shape was a bit too spherical, about as tall as it was wide. I think I should have pressed it down a bit.
A lovely crusty exterior. A light and fluffy crumb, very tender. A nice slightly sour taste.
The girls were not as impressed. They don’t like crusts.
I’ve probably got two more loaves left in this batch. Then I may tweak a bit for the next batch. Perhaps I’ll try their whole wheat sandwich bread and see how it matches up to the honey whole wheat recipe I’m already using.
Still, on the whole I think this is something I can work with. I really love not having to do the whole process in one day. And no kneading is a huge plus. With three small children, one of them a totally-breastfed infant, somehow a crisis always arises just in the middle of kneading.
