"Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" -- AWESOME!!!!!!

[Impus]

Killing my third loaf now, Yummy!

Sticky, yes. wrap cheese in, yes! Tomorrow bacon, yes! Going to try with wild yeast...

"Pinch-a-loaf"? Might word that differently, Phil.

[Amarksman]

Thanks, Just wanted to make sure. Next time I will meticulously measure my flour and see if its any different. I think I might "pinch a loaf" right now.

[michelle]

Also of note, my dough wasn't particularly wet--just sticky. I thought this may have just been me, but a coworker started some last night and mentioned that hers was pretty dry, too. Fortunately, it turns out well either way.

[razi]

I've been making a couple loaves of beer bread lately (sam adams winter lager ftw!). I'll give this a shot next.

[DeltaFoxtrot66]

Hello, made mine last night, 1/2 wheat, 1/2 white, super tasty, but pretty dense. I'll try scaling back on the wheat a bit, see what happens. Thanks for a good recipe. Peace, Dave.

[madwolf]

Trying this now, although, I don't have kosher salt, so I'm using iodized sea salt. We'll see how this goes.

[EeeNinja]

Trying this now, although, I don't have kosher salt, so I'm using iodized sea salt. We'll see how this goes.

Thats actually what I use as well. It should come out fine. Mix well to help it disolve.

[Ms-oldish-brit]

I've just made some - took me a while to get round to doing so as I needed to find out how to convert US measures to UK weights, and also 'convert' a few ingredients and cooking items.

I used the casserole technique (but my version of the dough was sloppy and wouldn't hold any shape, so I put it in a greaseproof paper lined loaf tin inside the casserole dish.)

I need to tweak my measurements a bit (I used a bit too much salt, and I don't think the dough should have been so sloppy) but I cannot believe how well this turned out, with so little effort! It was literally 5-10 minutes for first mix, and another 5-10 to 'pinch' half; next time I make it, I'll be more confident and quicker!

Thanks so much Chantrea, and bae for the casserole dish idea.

[madwolf]

Mine turned out quite nice as well. I was a little short on the salt, but, other than that, it turned out quite nicely! I'll definitely be refining and adding to this whole bread business.

[cafemonkey]

I haven't had the desire to bake in 15 years and all of the sudden I felt like baking, so I gave this a crack.

Unfortunately, mine didn't turn out as well as everyone else. I followed the instructions with no substitutions, but later realized that I put in 6 cups of flower instead of 6 1/2.

Problem is that after I let it set for 2 hours, it was too sticky and gooey to do anything with. I tried to stretch it like the guy in the video, but it was oozing out of my fingers before I could stretch anything.

Here's the dough after I "formed" them. Ended up being more like pancakes than bread:



The end result tasted OK, though they were flat so it was more crust and less soft center.



Do you think that 1/2 cup of flour would have done this, or did I screw something else up? I put the other half of the dough in the fridge overnight, so I can try the rest of this batch after some fridge time... Or I have enough material to make another batch.

[ogreboy]

So I used this bread to make pizza on Wednesday.

I just took a soft ball sized lump of raised bread put in on a flowered counter and tried to make it a round and flat as possible, I did try throwing it in the air, but that didn't work very well. It doesn't even have to be round, but I think round pizza tastes better.
Take a cookie sheet or a pizza pan and put a nice coating of olive oil on it.
Put the shaped dough on the pan and reshape as needed, because round tastes better.
The first time for sauce I used a can of tomato sauce and sprinkled some Italian seasoning on it but that didn't taste too special. On my second try I put the tomato sauce in a pan to simmer with some minced garlic, pepper and some Italian seasoning. I let that cook down for a while, this part wasn't an exact science, but I was just trying to thicken it up a bit.
Then spread the sauce on the crust leaving a small edge.
Sprinkle your favorite cheese or a mix, add toppings, then more cheese, get some of that extra olive oil and get it on the bare edge of the pizza.
Bake in preheated oven at 450 F, for 12-15 minutes, it should come right off of the pan because of all that olive oil.
Slice and enjoy.

I made more today but I didn't take pictures, but wow was it good. This makes VERY good crust it came out nice and brown and crunchy on the bottom and crust.

I also made cinnamon rolls today with this multipurpose bread.

I used the whole batch of bread for this.
First I rolled out the bread on a flowered counter top, after it had risen, in a big flat square, like 2 feet by 3 feet.
Then I covered it with soft butter a good healthy amount about 2 or 3 cubes.
Then I covered it in sugar, you can use a lot or a little but make sure you get even coverage.
Then I sprinkled cinnamon on top until there were no white spots, it takes a lot of cinnamon, just try and keep it even.
Then you roll it up in a long roll like above.
Then slice it in 2 to 3 inch sections and fill a pre greased, or pamed, pan.
Mine almost filled two 9x13 Pyrex dishes.
Take all that extra sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle it on top of the rolls.
Let it rise for 25 minutes on the oven while it is heating.
Bake in the oven at 400 for 25-35 minutes.

Ta da. Now let it cool all that boiling butter would just burn your mouth, I know its tempting, but just wait a little bit.
You can eat it now, or you could frost them.

To make the frosting you take a pound of cream cheese, a pound of poudered sugar, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, mix till creamy.
Spread it on and eat.

Thanks to my mother in law for the recipe and help in making the cinnamon rolls, she has made these for a long time but she would use Rhodes bread from the freezer isle, so I thought I could substitute this bread, and it worked wonderfully.

[Cavediver]

Did ya'll sift your flour?

I've got my first loaf in the oven. It looks good so far

[Jacob Creutzfeldt]

I had always heard that adding salt to the yeasty water will kill the yeast. Is that true? I always mix the salt in with the flour to give the little buggers half a chance.

It's better to wait with the salt.
I.e. knead the dough for a couple of minutes, add salt and knead some more. Salt kills some yeast, and will make it harder to get the desired behaviour (elasticity) of the dough.

Having dough in the fridge looks convenient. I'll try it someday. I mostly bake rye bread with sourdough.

[cafemonkey]

Seriously, what am I doing wrong?

I followed the instructions to the letter; no substitutions. I tried the rest of yesterday's batch after staying in the fridge overnight, and it was no better. So I threw it out and started a new one, being careful to measure the flour exactly right.

It looked a little better after it rose, though I can't explain why. Again, it was impossible to work with. I pulled a handful out, and there was no "forming" it. It stuck to my hands and as I tried to "stretch" the top and push it to the bottom, it all just stuck to my hands again. There is no shaping this at all.

My wife again suggested that we didn't have enough flour so we folded in another cup or so, but it didn't help much. It still sticks to my hands and oozes out the sides. I made another "poured" pile to try and bake out of sheer frustration, but I don't expect this to turn out any better.

Does anyone have any suggestions before I toss this and go buy a bread machine?

[ogreboy]

When you put the yeast in your warm, not hot, water let it dissolve and brake it down with a spoon until you don't see to many lumps. Then add the flower a cup at a time stirring with your spoon or whatever, and make sure it gets mixed good. Then when you get to the end if its still sticky keep adding flower until its not super sticky, a little sticky is okay. When I'm done with mine I can roll it around in the bowl and not have it stick to bad. Then let it rise somewhere warm, if you don't have a warm spot it will take longer to rise, but it should approximately double in size. Then when you take it out to form it, put some flower on your hands and that should help a little. Once you have it formed you need to let it rise again this time on top of the stove your preheating is good. That raise up a little more. I have been enjoying this bread a lot and I hope you will too.

Hope that helps you out cafemonkey.

[Confucius]

I usually add a little extra flour. Also, it helps to rub oil on your hands before forming the loaves.

[Ms-oldish-brit]

cafemonkey - mine was super sticky, and super sloppy too - I followed earlier advice and put lots of flour on my hands and on the dough. I didn't knead or stretch particularly, just tried to shape it as Chantrea said originally (haven't watched the video.) When I couldn't shape it because it 'oozed' too much, I lined a 1lb (1 pound) loaf tin (for half the quantity of dough) with greaseproof paper and put the mixture into that, so it was contained. I then put it in what I think you call a Dutch (or French) oven - no legs - a cast iron casserole dish, put it in the oven with the lid on, and it worked fairly well.

Happy to give you the measurements of the loaf tin I used, and try to find US terms for the measurement/equipment words I've probably used which are probably UK only!

The changes I made to the recipe were mostly necessary, converting measurements (cups to UK weight etc.), some ingredients which I can't easily get here - e.g. AP flour to plain flour, kosher salt to coarse grain sea salt and ignoring cornmeal, and using cooking equipment I have (I've never heard of pizza peel and don't have a pizza stone, bae suggested a casserole dish instead of the pan/tray of boiling water to provide steam.

Good luck - hope this helps a bit.

[Allen]

No, I don't sift the flour.
------

If You need this bread crust to be softer for some reason,
replaceing 6 Tablespoons of the flour with Vital wheat gluten
will do it.

Cheers!

[Ms-oldish-brit]

ogreboy - those cinnamon rolls look great!

I need to get my conversions from US to UK sorted properly first, before I try something like that, although my first batch turned out well - dough was very sloppy (and a bit salty) so I put it in another container to bake, but the bread was surprisingly good, and has stayed fresh, uncovered and unfrigerated for days. I didn't raise the dough a second time, and the result was perhaps a little dense but not at all heavy - from what you've posted, you've made this a few times - what difference do you find the second raising makes?

[ogreboy]

The first couple of times I made it I was impatient and I only let it rise the second time about 5 minutes while the oven warmed up. And them later I let it rise the full 40 minutes the second time and it was much 'fluffier'. I actualy liked it better a little more dense, so I only let it rise about 20 minutes, it works out well for me. I can't quite figure out what kind of problem you guys are having with the gooey dough, I wonder if you had enough yeast or maybe the yeast was bad. After I let mine rise it feels almost like a stress ball, it has some resistance to it. Someone earlier was saying that the salt can affect the yeast, so maybe don't put the salt in until later. Also if the salt can affect the yeast maybe if you have a high PH water that is messing up the yeast. But I'm definitely not an expert. Most of the cooking I do turns out poorly, because I rarely follow a recipe.

[Ms-oldish-brit]

I've just re-read Chantrea's original post, and I didn't let it rest after trying to shape - it just went straight into the oven

Still worked well.

My yeast definitely worked (it was quite old, and I thought it mightn't, but despite the salt and no sugar, it worked well and quickly.) Also, because I needed to help a friend out, it was more 24 hours than 5 before I made the first loaf; the mixture hadn't collapsed at all, to my surprise. Might be why mine was so gooey though.

Might be ambient temperature; I think with me I might have got the conversions a bit wrong (water to flour), or perhaps our UK plain flour is slightly different in absorbency to your all purpose flour. I'm still happy with the result, and very happy, as it takes so little time, to try to tweak it a bit.

Ogreboy, thanks for your input - I'll aim for that consistency. That's really helpful.

I think this really shows what a resilient recipe this is! I left out the entire second resting part and it still worked! And others here have tried different things, and most have worked.

[Cavediver]

I didn't sift my flour for the first batch. I also had to use bread machine yeast (no jars of regular yeast available at my normal grocery store: only the single serving packs).

When I was done mixing the dough it was pretty sloppy. I added in some more flour (just enough to cut the sloppiness) and let it rise for three hours. It was really, really poofy until I started messing with it (too much yeast action, too fast?).

The first loaf worked out pretty well. I never got the chance to cut the dough off as it tore quite easily. I also don't think that rose any more during the 40 minute rest; I'd guess bread machine yeast acts too quickly. Also, it held a decent shape while cold, but started to flatten and spread out during the rest period. Anyhow, it was a little more dense than I expected, but it was still pretty tasty. I've got the remainder in the fridge and will try to bake it up later this week.

[ogreboy]

So tonight I thought bread sticks would be good with dinner. So...

I just took a golf ball or slightly smaller lump and flowered it up and rolled it between my hand like I was trying to start a fire with a stick, until it was long and skinny, and when it got sticky I just put more flower on it. I tried a couple twisted together.
I put olive oil on a cookie sheet put the rolls on there.
Then I let it rise for 15 min, it didn't rise very much, so maybe longer next time.

Then I got some of that olive oil on the top of the rolls, and sprinkled Parmesan cheese on top.
I put it the my preheated oven at 450 F for 13 minutes.

Then eat immediately.

Yum. They were good but the Parmesan didn't add much flavor if any, I was thinking next time I might put real cheese in the twists. Another thing you could do is baste the top with butter after they come out of the oven.

[Kathy in FL]

You probably used quick-rise (aka rapid rise) yeast rather than just regular yeast.

I didn't sift my flour for the first batch. I also had to use bread machine yeast (no jars of regular yeast available at my normal grocery store: only the single serving packs).

When I was done mixing the dough it was pretty sloppy. I added in some more flour (just enough to cut the sloppiness) and let it rise for three hours. It was really, really poofy until I started messing with it (too much yeast action, too fast?).

The first loaf worked out pretty well. I never got the chance to cut the dough off as it tore quite easily. I also don't think that rose any more during the 40 minute rest; I'd guess bread machine yeast acts too quickly. Also, it held a decent shape while cold, but started to flatten and spread out during the rest period. Anyhow, it was a little more dense than I expected, but it was still pretty tasty. I've got the remainder in the fridge and will try to bake it up later this week.