Maiden Voyage, continued

We had a major winter storm on Friday and Saturday here in Middle Tennessee. Several inches of snow, followed by about an inch of ice. Everything is quite beautiful, as we are not used to snow that sticks and provides us with such pristine landscapes. However, the roads are still quite icy, and the temperatures will stay below freezing for at least another day. All churches in our area cancelled services for today, and I am fairly certain that our local schools will cancel for tomorrow. SO - whilst being snowed in, we are enjoying hunkering down by the fire with reading materials, homemade soups, and freshly made breads. Today I made a loaf of light whole wheat bread (which is my profile picture on this blog) and have a large loaf of pumpernickel almost finished baking as I write this.

This bread baking thing happened only a few weeks ago. I have always enjoyed cooking, and have been fairly successful at those endeavors. However, I have tried over the years to make good bread (GOOD bread, the kind that crunches when you bite into it and has a lovely crumb inside) over the years with less than stellar results, no matter what I did. Then one day a few weeks ago, we went to our friends house for dinner. I had made chicken parmesan, Lisa had made salad and bread. AND THE BREAD WAS BEAUTIFUL!!! Like BAKERY bread. Like OLD WORLD bread. And it tasted as good as it looked.

So I had to know her secret. And now you will know it, too. It is the method taught in the fabulous book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, by Hertzberg and Francois. Basically, a very wet dough is stirred together (one bowl, no kneading, no fuss), allowed to raise at room temp for a few hours, and stored in the fridge for up to 14 days. Bread baking daily is then made simple: A lump of dough the size of a grapefruit is cut from the bowl of dough, then it is lightly floured, hand - turned into a little loaf, placed gently upon a cornmeal crusted pizza peel, and left to rest 40 minutes. A baking stone is placed in the oven to warm up as the oven does. Once all is in readiness, the dough is placed in the oven on the stone, a cup of hot water placed in a pan on the shelf below the bread, and the oven door quickly closed. Baking time is about 30 minutes, depending on type of bread being made. Thats it.

Please look up this book on Amazon. It will change your (bread baking) life. Meanwhile, enjoy this photo of the pumpernickel that has just come out of the oven.