It’s a pretty typical Tuesday morning (okay, late morning, we like to sleep) and the smell of fresh-baked bread is flooding our little kitchen. How did it happen? It was actually pretty easy.
Step 1: Went to Borders with my Robb and my parents over the weekend, and picked up this book: Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes A Day.
The key here is five minutes, because that’s something I can handle. Our schedules are pretty much booked seven days a week. Robb has his plate very full with classes, and when I’m not in class or at the Writing Center, I’m hawking expensive makeup at Sephora. But just because we don’t have a cornicopia of time to waste doesn’t mean we want to eat poorly. Enter as much homemade food as possible.
So on Monday I ran to Target and picked up a pizza stone on the cheap (only $9, take that expensive Crate & Barrel baking stone) and got to work. I only made a half batch of the French Boule dough (the “master recipe”), but even that filled two Rubbermaid containers once it started rising. Mixing the dough was easy peasy and took maybe 20 minutes. Then I let it rise on the counter, left for class and Robb popped the dough in the fridge when he got home from classes.
This morning was the moment of truth. And it actually worked! As evidence, I present Exhibit A:
A little misshapen, sure, but this was only my first crack at it. We were supposed to let it rest for 20 minutes before slicing, but you know that didn’t happen. After ten long minutes, I had the bread knife in my hand. And the warm, soft bread couldn’t have been any more delicious. The book has dozens of bread recipes from pumpernickel to herbed to desert loaves, but I’m going to try and pace myself on the more challenging ones.
So hopefully these baking experiments will keep me posting (yes, we know we’ve been very bad bloggers, but we’re going to get back on the wagon!).