Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day

I received this book, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day", as a wedding gift (thanks, Allison!), and I've had the opportunity to try several different things from it now. I don't want to share the recipes because I guess the right thing to do would be to encourage you to buy the book, as the authors are trying to make a living... and since the book is more about the method than the ingredients.

The idea goes like this: Day 1, you mix a big batch of dough in a bowl, let it rise for a couple of hours, then cover the bowl and refrigerate it. For the next one to two weeks (depending on the recipe), you can then take out however much dough you want, let it rise for 40 minutes, then bake it at a high heat on a baking or pizza stone. To create steam, you pour hot water in an empty broiler pan placed on the bottom shelf. This method is meant to imitate that of a professional oven, thereby creating a crisp crust, a soft interior, and a bakery-level quality of bread with a limited time investment.

So far, I've made a light whole wheat bread and used the same dough to make a rosemary focaccia. They were all very good indeed. I have to hand it to the 2 authors of this book for simplifying bread-baking to the bare minimum of effort. While the process does require more than 5 minutes as the title suggests, I am loving it and would like to try some of the other recipes included. Challah with raisins, Sticky buns, and really everything sounds delicious!