Five Minute Bread Baking - Part 2

Well, time for an update on the Five Minute Bread Baking project I wrote about earlier. Did you catch the comment on the post from one of the authors? Who cares if it's a canned comment that they leave on everyone's blog that mentions their book via a Twitter search? I was impressed.

So instead of starting with the Master Recipe as they recommend in the book, I made the semolina dough as I had some semolina flour I wanted to use up. The recipe made enough dough for four loaves. I wanted to test the book's claim that you could keep the dough in your fridge for up to two weeks, so here's the report.

Day 1 - semolina bread - turned out beautifully, don't you just want to tear off that crusty end, douse it in olive oil, and nosh? However, I didn't get to taste it as I took the loaf to a holiday party and it wasn't cut into as the hostess was already serving other breads.

Day 4 - pizza crust (oops, no pic) - dough was too sticky to slide pizza onto baking stone in oven, so just baked it on a cookie sheet. Turned out fine, but probably would've been better baked on the stone to develop better crust.

Day 8 - foccaccia - wow, this was yummy! Basically patted out a chunk of the dough, sprinkled with sauteed onion, rosemary, coarse salt and pepper, drizzled with olive oil and baked. Dough had more of that full sourdough-ish flavor, really chewy.

Day 12 - one small chunk of dough remaining and it wasn't looking as fresh as last week, but some yeast bubbles were still apparent, so I went ahead and made sun-dried tomato and parmesean bread. I'm guessing the yeast wasn't very active as it didn't rise at all prior to baking. Not the prettiest loaf, but it had fantastic flavor. I ended up eating the whole thing!

Final verdict? I'm definitely going to keep doing this. You can't beat the convenience of having the dough waiting for you in the fridge, although I'll try to keep the dough no longer than 10 days. All the recipes I tried were sound and tasty, and the breads had a lovely texture thanks to the baking techniques recommended in the book. And c'mon, the co-author left a comment on my blog, he gets points for that.

They have recipes for softer American-style loaves as well, which my hubby prefers, so that may be my next batch. Ah, even in bread we make compromises for the sake of love.