Mmmm Bread

Is it possible that there are people on this earth that don't love bread? Who are able to sit down at a table at which there is a loaf of warm, fresh bread and not have any? I don't believe it possible. I believe that any normal human being seated within arm's reach of such a loaf will eat not just one but many, many slices. At some point, they'll realize what they have done and for a moment be dismayed at all the carbs they've consumed, but then they'll reach out and take another slice. Good bread is just impossible to resist.

Which is why we're in big trouble here.

For Christmas, Jeff gave me this book.

In case you can't tell the title is "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day." He'd sampled two loaves made by people who owned the book and was sold. He wanted this kind of bread in his life. And so I got the book for Christmas. That's how boys work in case you didn't know.

And so, one weekend in January, when there wasn't a darn thing to do but sit inside and moan about how darn cold it was outside and how everyone we knew in North Carolina was a liar because they all claimed the winters were mild, so, so, mild, we decided to make our first batch of homemade bread.

I was suspicious of the five minute claim. But churning out the dough turned out to be simple: throw some yeast, warm water, salt, and flour into my mixer and let it go.

A few twists and turns of the dough hook, and we've got dough. Lots of it. The awesome thing about this book and its recipes is that when you make the dough, you make enough for about five loaves. And the dough can be stored in your refrigerator for up to two weeks, meaning all you have to do when you want a fresh loaf is pull out a bit of dough, not start from scratch.

And for all you sourdough fans, the bread gets more sourdoughy over the course of the two weeks without requiring you to maintain a starter or anything difficult or time consuming like that.

Now though the book claims you can have artisan bread in five minutes that's not really true. Though making the dough itself definitely took five minutes or less, you've still got to bake it. This part takes longer. For starters, you've got to heat the oven.

And you've got to shape your loaf and let it rise.

Then comes the very, very, very hardest part. You have to sit and wait while your bread cooks. You have to be patient while your house fills with the smell of warm, delicious bread. You have to continually wipe the drool off your face. It's difficult. But if you can make it the twenty or so minutes it takes for your dough to transform into a loaf of delicious bread, warm and chewy on the inside, nice and crispy on the outside, then you will be rewarded greatly.

Mmmm.

We're addicted. Which, I guess, explains the fact that we have a 25 pound bag of flour in our hall closet.