Sunday, March 21, 2010

Breadalicious

I've been making homemade bread for a while. I let our bread maker mix, knead, and rise the dough. Then I take it out, shape it, let it proof, and then bake it in the oven. We love my bread and make sandwiches like this one out of it on a regular basis. However, there were a few problems with my system:

1. I only knew, and baked, one basic type of bread.

2. I could only make one loaf at a time.

3. It took 3 hours to make a single loaf of bread. So, I am very limited on what I can do with bread.

I've been seeing a lot of people talking about a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day on the internet. What I was seeing was intriguing, and we are making changes to our diet, so I went out and bought the book. After reading through the basics and scanning through the rest of the book, I got started on my first dough using the master recipe.

Friday night I mixed up a double batch of the master recipe for the first time. This method makes up several loaves worth of dough at once, which is then stored in the fridge until it is needed (up to 2 weeks). A double batch makes eight 1lb loaves.


Saturday morning, I pulled out my first 1 1/2 pounds of dough and made english muffins for the first time ever. With the exception of two that I overcooked, they came out great. Next time, they'll be perfect. My kids liked them better than store bought. And, they are dairy free, unlike store bought.



A few hours later, I pulled out another pound of dough and made a boule. A one pound round is tiny! LOL It was suppose to be for dinner. It looked so pretty, but I cut into anyway. It didn't last long. Everyone enjoyed it, giving it two thumbs up.



Because my boule didn't make it to dinner, I pulled out another pound of dough before dinner, and made a baguette with it. It turned out a little wide for a true baguette but it was close enough. We enjoyed it with our dinner of broiled salmon and garden salad.


Today, I pulled out another pound or so (I didn't weigh it this time) and made an onion and rosemary focaccia to go with our black-eyed pea soup and salad for dinner. It was yummy, too. There's none left...of any of the breads.

I've got to say that I really like having the dough ready to use in the fridge. I'll be re-purposing a couple of Tupperware containers so I can have two different types of dough in my fridge at once. I'm seriously thinking about getting their other book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

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4 Comments:

Twisted Cinderella said...

The bread looks wonderful!

Anonymous said...

That looks pretty sweet - just a little work up front and all that bread - Yum!

Just put it on hold at the library to check it out :)

The Four Week Vegan said...

They all look so very yummy!

my5wolfcubs said...

Beautiful breads! Off to check my library for the books...