5.2.11

Five Minute Artisan Bread

Before we left the states, we visited my old friends Chris and Sarah Cropsey (no relation that we know of to the McCropder Cropseys), and Chris was telling me about his ventures into the 5-minute artisan bread. He made us a sample that night, and it was excellent.


For some reason, after more than a year, this popped back into my head, and I wondered if I could find it online. It took a couple YouTube videos, and a couple of links, but I finally pieced together the general recipe and have been trying it out. Here's a photo of one from a couple weeks ago.

The awesome part about this is how easy it is. The recipe that I've put together from a couple different websites is this:

6.5c all-purpose flour
3c room temp water
1.5 Tbs salt
1.5 Tbs yeast

Mix in a big bowl until no big flour clumps. No kneading. Rise for two hours and then store in fridge up to 2 weeks. At any point, you can take it out, flour the surface, pull off as much dough as you want, and shape into a loaf by pulling the sides around to the bottom (see video). Place on a cornmeal-dusted pizza peel and rise for 40 minutes. Cut slits as desired then put into oven, preheated at 425 with a pizza stone (we don't have one and so we skip the pizza peel/pizza stone part) and a metal cake pan on the rack below. After placing on stone, pour 2c water into the preheated metal cake pan for steam to make crustier bread. Bake until golden brown.

The recipe makes about 4 small loaves, and can also be used for a ready-made pizza dough. Again, watch the video for how versatile this can be.

Yummy.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Without salt is the way I plan to do this easy recipe for dad. thanks, Mom

afreakforjc said...

Tell me if you find it appealing. I refer you to a previous blogpost of my own.

http://afreakforjc.xanga.com/730892918/simply-bread/

Anonymous said...

I loved this! I have never been a bread maker, but this sounded so easy I had to give it a try. And it tastes good :) If it works, here's a picture:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/po5xXaS_1niV52UEcUvUB76TwIXjZWBZdA_bfMKATaM?feat=directlink

The Drs. McLaughlin said...

Drew, it tastes great. We've made about a dozen loaves, with some minor variations, and it's a great, if uber-crusty pizza dough as well.

Anonymous said...

thanks for all these bread ideas! english muffins, bagels, and now Artisan bread!! Keep them coming!

nana

teresa said...

This is the bread recipe we've used over and over again. It also makes good (big) sandwich bread if you make a smaller roll-size, and cinnamon rolls too. For cinnamon rolls I make a long strip of the bread, spread butter, then sprinkle cinnamon sugar and raisins and roll up. I make a pan then let it sit overnight to rise. Bake in the morning for about 12 minutes.

Kimberly said...

The girls and I did it this morning - turned out great! Lily and I had a hard time stirring so I turned it out into my KitchenAid for a few minutes, but I think if I used a wider container next time it won't be so hard to get it all mixed well. Tastes great! Looking forward to easily making some for Arch when he gets home on Thursday!