Sunday, April 10, 2011

Booking It 2011: Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

This month I read Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I have to say that I really loved this book. My family seems to eat a lot of sandwiches and, therefore, we go through a lot of bread. I don't like buying the cheap $1.00 per loaf bread that I can get at the grocery store nor do I like paying $4.00 per loaf at times for the good bread. So I thought this might be a good alternative to keeping bread in my house but not breaking the bank. I tried 3 different recipes from the book: Soft American Sandwich Bread, Crusty Sandwich Bread, and Boule.

The Soft American Sandwich Bread was ok. I didn't get great results with it. The crumb was somewhat dense and it had some issues cooking all the way through (this may be that it the dough was pretty cold when it went in as my house is on the cold side). In comes the Crusty Sandwich Bread. I LOVE this bread. The flavor is great and the crumb is light and fluffy. My husband liked it better stating that he found it easier to cut small slices for sandwiches. The boule turned out well as far as texture and taste, but the loaf spread quite a bit. This could have been from resting for too long or that more flour needed to be dusted onto the loaf.

I enjoyed cooking from this book and hope to try more recipes from it after getting a copy for myself.

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