Artisan Bread, the easy way!

I just had to share with you my latest bread making experience. The recipe for this delicious, wonderful, hard, crispy, crunchy, crusted artisan bread is from the book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking.
This book contains the basics for making the bread plus a large quantity of additional recipes.

This is an incredibly easy method of baking bread with four basic ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast. You do need a large mixing/storage container, a pizza peel and a baking stone. Although all of these things are not 100% necessary it does ensure a hard artisan crust. This bread is much better than the other No-Knead method I had tried and liked before I knew about this method. Much better...hands down! My first loaf was going well until I heard a big bang from the oven. My approximately 20 year old baking stone cracked into 4 pieces! Have no idea why that happened except for the fact the stone was so old. We ate the bread even though I had to finish baking it on the broken stone. Did this discourage me from wanting to try again?...NO....the bread was incredible!! The loaf was a little small for us, but I knew I would be baking more of this bread so I went right out and bought a replacement stone from our Williams and Sonoma outlet store for eight dollars and some change. Baking on the new stone yielded a wonderful loaf and no breakage this time. I did make a larger loaf though (hard to tell from the picture). If you want to see a video of the book's authors demonstrating the technique click here. Here's the link to their website. Here's a link for you to try the basic recipe before buying the book. I think if you try it you will be impressed. I can't wait to try more of the recipes. Yesterday I baked a loaf in a bread pan for sandwiches. Sorry no photos. My only problem now is slicing the bread. I sure wish I could afford a bakery type bread slicer like this one or even this one. I am terrible at slicing even slices. Does anyone know the secret for slicing perfect slices of homemade bread? Do you think this Rival Folding Food Slicer would do the trick? I would be so happy if I could find something that would make slicing bread easy and affordable :)

Chocolate Tea Bread

Chocolate Tea Bread is one of my families favorite snacks. You can enjoy this bread as is, drizzle with glaze or sprinkle with powdered sugar. This easy recipe makes 2 breads.

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

2/3 cup canola oil
4 large eggs
2/3 cup water
2 1/2 cups sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour (or 2 cups all-purpose + 1 cup whole wheat white)
2/3 cup cocoa
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (12 oz. = 1 package)
2/3 cup chopped walnuts ( optional)

Glaze (optional)
1/2 cup confectioner's (powdered) suar
1 - 2 tbsp. milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla
pinch salt

Preheat oven 350°. In a large mixing bowl combine applesauce, oil, eggs water, and sugar. Beat well. Combine dry ingredients and add to applesauce mixture. Beat well. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. Pour into 2 greased 9X5X3" loaf pans. Bake 350° for 60-70 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing and then finish cooling on a wire rack. Leave as is or drizzle with glaze or just sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Enjoy :)

Nanie's Apple Bread

This is my mother-in-law's recipe for Apple Bread. I have tried many apple bread recipes in the past but none compare to Nanie's. This easy recipe makes two loaves. The resulting bread is moist, sweet and the crust on the first day is a cross between crunchy and chewy.

3 cups all-purpose flour*
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cups sugar
2 cups shredded peeled apple (2 large)
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts


Preheat oven to 350º. Grease two, 8x4x2 inch loaf pans ( I line mine with wax paper and grease again). In a large bowl combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and powder, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.

In another mixing bowl combine sugar, apples, oil, and egg. Mix well. Add apple mixture to dry ingredients. Stir just until moistened. Batter should be lumpy. Fold in nuts.

Spoon batter into the two prepared pans. Bake in a 350º oven 55 - 60 minutes until a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan (and remove wax paper). Continue to cool on wire rack. Wrap and store overnight.

* ( I use 1 1/2 c of all purpose + 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat white)

Enjoy :)

No Knead Bread

I love watching the Martha Stewart Show, but don't get to view it during the day. I tape the show and watch it while I knit at night. Last week I saw this bread being made and I was intrigued and yesterday I decide to give it a try. I had to plan ahead though and mixed up the dough at 7 pm the night before. The picture on the left is what I ended up with. I used corn meal on the outside of the loaf. This is a extremely easy recipe from the Sullivan Street Bakery in NYC. ...not for spontaneous baking though because you need 12 - 18 hours to rise. Once the dough( gets bubbly) is ready you bake it in a dutch oven preheated to 500º, uncovering the last 15 minutes. You can find the recipe for this No Knead Bread on the New York Times website. If you like artisan type bread with hard chewy crust you'll love this one. My family loved it. I hid away a couple of slices for me to toast for my lunch today and it was absolutely wonderful. Reminds me in a way of Thomas's English muffins...only crunchier. Give it a try...I think you'll like it :) and I'll be making more in the future. I wonder how it would come out using whole wheat flour?...I see another experiment in my future!

4/12/07 I had to edit this post because it was brought to my attention that the Martha Stewart Website recipe link no longer worked! I searched the new site but could no longer find the recipe. (Funny, I was able to do a search and I could easily find Courtney's hummus recipe!)A subsequent search on google led me to this New York Times recipe which is the same as the original published on Martha. Thanks Frances for letting me know about this problem. I really appreciate the info, because bad or broken links are one of my pet peeves!

Julie's Banana Bread

This is my favorite recipe for banana bread. A friend gave me this recipe many many years ago. Extremely easy to make...just throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. No electric mixer needed. It freezes well, too.

1/2 cup oil
2 eggs beaten
2 cups flour ( I use 1 cup all-purpose and 1 cup whole wheat white)
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 cup sugar
3 ripe bananas mashed
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In one bowl combine all ingredients. Bake in a greased ( I line the greased (PAM) pan with waxpaper and grease again) loaf pan at 350° for 50 - 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Cool.

Enjoy :)