Artisan Bread in Five Minuts a Day by Jeff Hertzburg, MD and Zoe Francois is one of the rare cook books I've picked up, mostly because it was on sale and I'm interested in bread baking as a general thing. The book's cover makes a claim to revolutionizing baking and the write up claims to make it easy to make fancy breads. Well, maybe...
Part of the concept is to make a large batch and then over the next week or two, turn it into several loafs or other recipes to provide both ease and variety. However, many of the recipes actually call for a separate/modified initial dough recipe, so the variety requires some advanced planning. The other part of the concept, and to enable both the ease and the storing, is a somewhat different style of bread recipe which, among other things, is as wet as sour dough and calls for no sugar. The expected result is larger air holes in the bread, a very soft center, and a crispy crust like that of many European breads. (Most of the bread recipes have the European names that are becoming common in American bakeries like brioche and foccacia).
Well, okay, not quite as flexible as I was hoping with the "master recipe" concept but still, some interesting breads and plenty of recipes to play with for some time to come. So now Ihave the book and have started reading and my first batch is in progess so I'll find out how it really works and let you know in my next blog post or two but meanwhile, I thought I'd make some observations about the writing and the content of the reading material.
They spend a lot of time telling the reader/cook that it isn't necessary to proof the yeast. Well maybe. It's true enough for the powdered yeast packets tthat they call for if they are fresh bought, and most recipes for the powdered yeast don't call for proofing or even mixing in the water before adding the flour. I use cake yeast and it's not bought yesterday, though, so I prefer to proof. And immediately find that most of the emphasis on not proofing seems to be a disguise for pointing out that you CAN'T proof it in these recipes for the simple fact that most of them call for not using sugar. No sugar in the water means no bubbles, no test of yeast growth. Okay, so we're going on faith... Yeast an use flour to grow so no biggie (the other grain recipes, typically, don't call for enough of the other grains in my view, but the dpendance on easy-to-access calories for the yeast would necessitate that).
The other thing they spend a lot of time on is the not kneading. Again, their logic is iffy. For these kinds of breads, that's fine. Big airy holes may be desirable. Kneading and especially kneading in more flour for a drier bread makes for smaller air bubbles and a more traditional bread, but again, it seems more to hide the fact that with such wet bread dough you couldn't kneed if you wanted to. (They call for half again as much water as for traditional breads). Like many sour doughs, all you can do is stir the goo and, with really well floured hands, shape it a bit before more or less pouring it onto the pan.
The book does have plenty of recipes and not just bread, though as I mentioned, you may have to do some menu planning to make sure that you are making the right sized batch of the right type of dough and can use it up in the required two weeks. Also, the initial preparation time for each batch is many hours, calling for a minimum of several hours rising time, and three hours to overnight chilling, so not something you can decide on for tonight's dinner. Once you're past that stage, it goes quicker. Recipes include main dishes like pizza and flat breads for filling, munchies like soft pretzels, and sweets like cinnamon rolls and pastries besides lots of kinds of breads.
My first attempt is a half batch of the master recipe (yesterday's preparation and first rise) and half of that as a batarde loaf (today). It's still in the oven so results will have to wait, but so far it's so-so. The instructions--spread over two recipes without cross references to the page numbers--talk about shaping into a long roll, but without mixing in more flour--specifically recommended against with instructions to just roll it on the outside surface--there was no shaping it. Also, the five minutes a day is misleading. Yes, after waiting over night, I didn't have to do much with the dough, and I can do other things while it is rising (20 minutes just to get the rising started) and baking (rising and baking both together), I can do other things, like blog, but it is still bread, afterall, and still calls for being home for the hour. Also, it makes less than the the instructions imply. For bread volume, that's fine for fresh bread quickly consumed by a couple of people, but this isn't going to be a loaf slice I can put in the toaster tomorrow morning, more like a low slice you can easily hold in one hand while spooning soup with the other. Or slice it longwise for a generous sub sandwich, no more than that. It's not rising very evenly in the oven - it might not need kneading but it apparently needs a little more massaging into shape. I'll be trying again later this weekend and will let you know how it goes, along with reports on the taste of this one.
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