Adventures in Boule

Hello! How are you today? It was an overcast, rainy day here, but let me tell you a little secret - I loved it! I love this time of year; the snow is starting to melt, the rain starts to fall, and it really starts to smell like spring. Love love love it. Don't you? I did have a nasty migraine today, but I'm lucky enough to have Ben for my wonderful husband. He takes care of me when the headaches hit, and has patience with me when they force me onto the couch, whimpering and whining. If that's not love, I don't know what is!

The reason I'm writing today is to brag a little bit; I like to do that once in a while when I'm really proud of something I've done, and this seems like the right venue. :) As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up seven books for a pretty decent price from Borders during their going-out-of-business sale. Three of those were cookbooks, and I couldn't be happier with my choices, considering I didn't so much as flip through them in-store. They sounded good from the titles, so I took a chance. If nothing else, I liked the covers enough to at least have them on display even if the recipes were terrible.

One of these books was about bread making; it's called Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg MD and Zoe Francois (see their website here). I thought it would be great because not only do I want to learn to make great bread at home, but I also liked that it's local, with both authors living in the Minneapolis area. And so begins my first foray into bread making...

I started the process yesterday, as the book recommends (to give the dough time to chill thoroughly in the fridge, making it easier to handle), and it took maybe 10 minutes, start to finish. I added the four ingredients to my stand mixer, let it combine, and left it on the counter for a couple hours. The result was a very sticky mass of dough; it was enough to make about 4 loaves, depending on the size you choose.

When it had risen enough, I threw it in the fridge with some plastic wrap over the top. After I started to feel a little better after popping some of my migraine pills this afternoon, I decided it was a good time to make some dang bread (munchies and all that). It couldn't have been easier; I lopped a chunk off the big mass, sprinkled it with some flour, and pulled the sides down to make a ball. That only took about two minutes. After that, it was just a matter of letting it rest on a pizza peel with some corn meal (to prevent sticking) for about 40 minutes.

I preheated the oven, made some slashes through the top of the dough, and baked for a half hour. At the end of the 30 minutes, we had a wonderfully scented kitchen and this:

Right? Get. In. My. Belly. I made some honey butter while we waited for it to cool (with Ben hovering with the bread knife all the while), and then we went to town on the little loaf. I would have included pictures of the cut bread to show how beautiful and dense it was on the inside, but it just didn't last long enough. We gobbled it down in an hour (well, I like to think of bread as a nutritious dinner...). Luckily, the way this ... I don't know ... program works is that you make this big batch of really wet dough and leave it in the fridge. Over the course of two weeks you have this great dough at your disposal, and it gets more sourdough-y as the time wears on. So the way I see it, we'll get at least 3 more loaves out of that one batch, and Ben couldn't be happier. :) The best part? The money I spent on the yeast and the flour (it calls for all-purpose non-bleached) was less than I'd spend on one loaf of crusty bread at the store. Sold.

I can't wait to try some of the other recipes included in that book - and when I do I'll definitely share them with you.

Thank you for reading and take care!