Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

I've been baking just about every *other* kind of baked good for the last two years (quick bread, cake, pie, brownies, cookies), but avoided yeast breads like the plague since my several prior attempts turned out like bricks, particularly when using refrigerated dough. Enter "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day;" using the master dough recipe (and its variations), you can whip together nearly endless combinations of sweet and savory yeast doughs including brioche, challah, buttermilk, oatmeal, rye, and several ethnic breads (limpa, ciabatta, baguette, pumpernickel) in a few minutes with the stir of a spoon: no kneading required.

Sounds too easy to be true? I tried making the master dough recipe and several variants (brioche and challah-based enriched pastries including chocolate brioche, caramel pecan rolls and almond bostock), and all turned out beautifully. Remember: my first breads turned out like bricks, so having fluffy, flavorful loaves on my first try was nothing short of a miracle. I combined several tips from "Artisan Bread" with some of Carole Walter's advice from Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More: 200 Anytime Treats and Special Sweets for Morning to Midnight: use lukewarm, 100-degree water (too hot and you'll kill the yeast), and let dough rise in a slightly warm oven at about 100 degrees), and this seemed to fix my prior problems.

The book includes crusty peasant loaves baked on pizza stones (to achieve maximum crunch, mist the crust with water when you slide the dough in) as well as egg-and-butter enriched challah and brioche that serve as vehicles to sweet endings such as bostock (almond-and-orange-scented sweet rolls), sticky pecan rolls, chocolate brioche, panettone, and babka. There are also some non-bread recipes included that make the perfect pairing with the book's included breads, such as Door County cherry preserves, salads, granola, Tuscan bean dip, gazpacho, and Portuguese fish stew.

The book's website includes several updates on errors in the book, so be sure to check first if you're in doubt about the amount of a certain ingredient. If you're a home baker tired of paying artisan bakery prices, but long for truly great bread at home, this is an easy, gentle introduction to yeast breads that require minimal effort (doughwise; rolling and filling is still messy!!) and it makes a wonderful gift.

I love the idea of having bread dough in the fridge to bake at any time. The problem is that my refrigerator is just not large enough to store a big vat of dough 24/7 as the book's method requires. Maybe when I move to the suburbs. That said, the breads I have made from the book have been decent. The wetter-then-normal dough is NOT easy to work with, and I have some trouble differentiating between legitimate moisture issues where I need to add more flour and the extra moisture that results from the technique in the book. In my experience, the doughs in this book will be a little less high-rising than the doughs a home baker is used to.

I'm 57 years old and have never made a loaf of bread from scratch because my Mother never taught me how to knead it. This book showed me how to make wonderful bread in no time at all WITHOUT any kneading. I absolutely love it! Especially the peasant bread recipe. It's earthy, grainy with wonderful flavor and texture. And best of all.....it's EASY!

With this book and no prior experience, I made my first loaf of bread. I was shocked at how perfectly it turned out. I've made two other loafs from that batch of dough--all turned out so well. My two year old devours the bread, which is quite a compliment because he is a huge fan of Good Bread.

The results taste completely professional, the recipes are easy to follow, the book is well laid out, and best of all, the process is so well streamlined that I know this is something that will be a regular addition to our busy life. I doubt we'll ever go a week without homemade bread again!

This is a marvelous book. Easy to understand and loads of easy recipes to make bread. I bought three more copies to give as gifts for Christmas.