Today’s finished objects are a little different than usual. I have made bread!!!  I followed the Master Recipe in The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and I actually had some success!  I promise I won’t be so detailed in later posts, but I’m rather excited. So, here are my “project notes.”

Bread. Such a simple thing, really. Flour, water, salt, and yeast. Four simple ingredients combine in some sort of elusive alchemy to create that wondrous, heavenly staple that has fed the world for millennia.

Well, the alchemy isn’t so elusive. This book demystifies the process and turns even a non-baker like me into a successful bread maker…or moderately successful anyway. 😉

All the players

First, I combined the ingredients in an 8-quart bowl.

Allowed it to rise for two hours. It really rose!

After resting in the fridge overnight. The dough shrank as the authors said it would.

Shaped and resting on the peel.

And the finished loaf! Tada!!

It turned out kind of wonky and heart-shaped, but it’s bread! Unfortunately, it also turned out a little gummy in the middle. Not underdone, just gummy instead of moist. It made yummy toast!

The next loaf I made looked a lot better. I remembered to dust the top with flour and made my slashes a little deeper. However, it also turned out gummy.

According to the book, my dough is probably too moist. I’ll add a little more flour to my next batch. In the mean time, I decided to burn (unfortunately literally) the rest of this batch of dough making naan. I love naan and was excited to find instructions for making it in the book.

A mason jar for a rolling pin

12 in cast iron skillet

It took three times to get a piece that resembled the pictures in the book. The extremely burned one on the bottom is the one I made when I followed the directions exactly. My apartment still smells like smoke! I know now that “high heat” too high on my stove! It was a good learning experience. I’ll be making naan again, I’m sure.

Time to start my next batch of dough. Have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend!

~Janet