Not-So-Artisan Bread in More than Five Minutes

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking (AB in 5)is my latest bread project. Baking not only bread, but artisan bread in five minutes a day? Their clocking five minutes of bread making a day is akin to counting the hours of making a baby based on the hours the mother is in labor. The hardest part might be accurate, but there are a few steps left out.

The authors, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë Francois, streamline bread making by skipping some steps and combining or ignoring others: proofing yeast, mixing dry ingredients separately, kneading, an autolyse, and a second rise are not part of their method. But their book's greatest contribution is tweaking their formula to make a long-lasting dough similar to making a sourdough that doesn't need to be fed. With their master formula you apply economy of scale and cut your per loaf time commitment: mixing, clean-up and waiting for the first rise are consolidated. You prepare a week or more of dough all at once in one big batch. The dough is wet, the amount of yeast is high enough to stay alive, but the salt level is sufficient to retard the blob from taking over your fridge.

The Test

I was skeptical, but decided to follow the recipe as rigidly as possible and see. My first loaves were good, but not great. I didn't like the crumb (holes too small), but could chalk it up to inadvertent kneading. The authors emphasize that the dough shouldn't be kneaded, which makes sense if you aren't doing a second rise -- overhandle the dough and you'll destroy the cell development from the first rise. The wetter than usual dough sticks to everything. Flouring hands and the top of the dough as they recommend simplified handling, and my crumb issue improved slightly on subsequent loaves. I monitored the oven temperature carefully and got good oven spring, but still my crumb was closer to standard grocery loaves than artisan.

I've gotten a good crispy crust from using King Arthur bread flour and giving it a boost of protein by adding a tablespoon of garbanzo bean flour and grinding half a tablet of vitamin C (per Cookwise by Shirley Corriher). I skipped these additions with the AB in 5 book, but got a good crust anyway. I'm convinced this was because of their recommendation to put an old broiler pan in the oven while it preheats. When it's time to bake, pour a cup of water to steam the oven. I omitted this step on one loaf and the difference was noticeable. I've sprayed loaves before, but pouring in a pan adds substantially more steam and isn't as frightening as shoving a spray bottle in a hot oven and squirting.

The first batch (5 separate loaves) was good, but not great. Homemade bread is usually good. If "artisan" is in the title, AB in 5 still had to earn its chops on quality. I tried a batch of rye. Once again the crust was fine, the taste was fine, but the crumb was doughy even after adding a few extra minutes in the oven. On the second rye loaf I tried a deviation and kneaded for two or three minutes. Still no dice. Essentially the same results. Out of seven loaves, I hadn't produced one of exceptional flavor or even good crumb. The sourdough-like flavor that I anticipated from days in the fridge didn't materialize.

My argument about timing isn't over active time to get dough from fridge to oven. It's the intervals between steps that makes bread making a bigger time commitment than acknowledged. Here is the way the five minute method is supposed to work: When the dough comes out of the fridge (start the clock) you cut off a hunk, shape the hunk into a boule, but don't knead it. Next, put it on a peel and slide it in the hot oven. Pour water in the old broiler pan as described above (stop the clock). Preheating the oven while the dough reaches room temp doesn't count (20 minutes); original prep time doesn't count (15 minutes); baking time doesn't count (30 minutes). True, much of this time you aren't nursing the loaf along, but you can't go kayaking either. If you're not in the kitchen during those times, you better be able to get there quick.

Marketing is one thing, but . . .

Shortly after trying this book out, I wrote an Amazon review similar to this one in gist, but shorter and in a different style. Later, I discovered the authors shark the Amazon website, tagging comments on negative reviews. I can't imagine that they aren't stuffing the ballot boxes by "voting" on whether or not a review is helpful. It's hard to cut it as an author, but the book has done well enough. Knock it off.

"Give Us this Day, Our Daily Bread"

"You can be killed or seriously injured if you don't follow instructions." With these words I began to learn about our wedding present, a new Kitchen Aide stand mixer. It sat unused for nearly a year. My wife used it first. Each subsequent year it got more usage. We recently celebrated our 10th anniversary and I've been eyeing the meat grinding attachment. But bread dough is where the action is coming from.

Friends less enthusiastic about food than myself (nearly everyone) tell me about how unforgiving baking is, especially measurement. I also hear about the time demands, i.e. an hour to rise, 30 minutes to rest the dough (autolyse), another hour for a second rising. No one's mentioned potential death from a mixer. You'd think death would outweigh inconvenience!

The Mini Chef loves white food, starchy foods in particular: rice, bread, pancakes, french fries. Baguettes were a happy medium. She got her starchy white bread, we got chewy, tasty bread.

I followed Mark Bittman's directions for crusty French bread in How to Cook Everything. It was good, but wasn't fantastic. I couldn't blame the recipe, there were always other issues. Once our house was too cold for the yeast to bud properly (50 degrees). Initially, I didn't pay much attention to the type of flour (bread vs. all-purpose), and yes, I didn't always measure properly.

I started picking up tips from Shirley Corriher's Cookwise. This is the cookbook to go to if you want to learn too much. I love having this as a resource. Her biochemistry background shows. I've learned much about the properties of protein, about gliadin and glutenin, and too much about yeast. I learned that mixing a tablespoon of garbanzo bean flour and a half a vitamin C tablet would bump a batch of dough's protein level, and improve the crispiness of the outer crust. I continued to follow the Bittman recipe, but with these additions and the baguettes were better. Bakewise by Shirley Corriher was recently published, but I'm just not ready.

My latest experiments have been from Amy's Bread, by Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree. Amy's Bread is nearly the polar opposite of Cookwise. Cookwise will tell you in depth about what is happening to the ingredients. Corriher isn't clinical, in fact, her advice is practical and she speaks about baking plainly. She just happens to provide a wealth of background information that is at times intimidating. Amy's Bread is highly prescriptive, detailed and the motivation for instructions aren't always clear. I haven't studied Amy's Bread as I have Cookwise, but I will keep trying, and whenever working with the Kitchen Aide, I'll exercise extreme caution.

Artichoke to Za'atar - White Bean Soup with Merguez Sausage

I wouldn't normally make soup in August. Soup making is a cold weather sport, and the time commitment intimidating. Huddling over a soup pot hour after hour, tweaking quantities and conditioning the right balance of flavors -- August is too hot for that. But if its a Middle Eastern soup? Heck, August in Minnesota is like . . . , I guess like night to an equatorial country, and the ingredient list was intriguing.

The use of cinnamon caught my attention. Although I'd seen cinnamon used as a savory ingredient in an Ethiopian stew (see Niter Kebbeh and Mekellesha in Ethiopian night), it still creates cognitive dissonance -- isn't this the stuff you make cookies and sweet rolls out of? My source for this recipe, Melissa Lion on Culinate mentions the same reaction in her review of Artichoke to Za'atar, by Greg and Lucy Malouf. Cinnamon is a hot spice, evident in numerous candies and displays of machismo on Youtube.

Hazelnuts, both roasted and hazelnut oil, put vote number two in the "I'll make this" column. I hated to drop $10 to $15 on such a specialized ingredient as hazelnut oil, but I have a feeling that if I own a bottle of hazelnut oil, I will find uses for hazelnut oil. There might be a salad dressing on the horizon.

The third vote in favor came from the Merguez sausage. I had never had Merguez sausage, but ground lamb with garlic, roasted red pepper, pepper flakes, oregano and paprika -- how wrong can you go? I didn't bother looking for a shop that sells this, though St. Paul's East African community is large enough to support halal butchers. I bought the ingredients and made it myself sans casings. I found a recipe at Charcuterista.

I belong to the "recipes are guides, not gods" club. The recipe as provided in Melissa Lion's review was very good. But I would make some changes. There was scarcely a quart after an hour and a half on the stove. An incidental draw to this recipe was that I could use some homemade stock and homegrown tomatoes. Unfortunately, the 3 tomatoes called for were overkill; this wound up very acidic. I plan on making this again, but here is the recipe with my adjustments:

White Bean Soup with Merguez Sausage (modified from Artichoke to Za'atar)

1 cup white haricot (navy) beans, sorted, rinsed and soaked overnight in 2 1/2 cups of water*
2 quarts chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 1/2 oz. of bacon
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 stick celery
2 cloves garlic
2 medium ripe tomatoes, skinned de-seeded, and finely chopped
1 tsp. honey
1 tsp thyme leaves
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 Tbsp hazelnut oil
Salt & pepper
1 cup shredded spinach leaves
12 oz merguez sausage, grilled and sliced
2/3 cup of roasted, peeled and crushed hazelnuts

1. Drain the haricot (navy) beans and place them in a tall 4 quart pan with the chicken stock and cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 1 to 2 hours until the beans are tender. If you use the "quick soak" method below, this may be shorter.
2. In a frying pan, heat the olive oil and saute the bacon, onion, garlic and celery for about 4 minutes until they are lightly colored and softened. Add the mix to the beans and stock with the tomatoes, honey, thyme, lemon zest and hazelnut oil.
3. Season with salt, pepper. Bring the soup to a boil. Add the shredded spinach, garnish with slices of the merguez sausage and crushed hazelnuts.

*"Quick soak" method of preparing beans: Sort and rinse beans. Place beans with twice as much water in a pan with a tight fitting lid. Boil for two minutes. Remove from the heat and cover with the lid. Allow to sit for two to four hours.

Why My Breakfast Hasn't Turned Me Into a Rabid Jihadist

Dear FBI,

I thought I better explain my breakfast today. The Persian Cauliflower Kuku I ate this morning may sound like food for jihadists plotting the destruction of the US, and so I'd like to clear a few things up. It is Persian, which of course is just a euphemism for Iranian, and we all know what that means.

When I ordered Najmieh Batmanglij's cookbook, Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey from Amazon, I was afraid I might be making a bad impression. Batmanglij makes no effort to hide or apologize for the fact that she was born in Iran. Her cookbook features recipes and tales from regions as diverse as China and Italy, but most are central Asian. Iranian, Uzbek, Afghan and Turkish dishes make it look like a veritable Al Jazeera of food. But I really bought it for my cookbook collection. I didn't mean to show interest in recipes incorporating pistachios, pomegranates or saffron. My wife hasn't said anything, but I can tell -- she wished I'd picked it up in a regular store and paid cash.

The eggs, cheese, and cauliflower of the Kuku didn't use too much fat so I thought it looked like a hearty, healthy breakfast. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything. It was our family breakfast before going to church today. We haven't gone quite as much as we should, but I thought I'd let you guys at the FBI know, we are church-going types. Although, we're Presbyterians.

The recipe was kind of complicated. It had 16 ingredients. I wonder if such recipes are meant to boggle and distract Americans. First, I had to prepare an egg mixture, sort of like an omelet: 6 eggs, a little baking powder, flour and cheese (mozzarella and/or Parmesan), then I had to saute onions and garlic. Next, I added the florets from a head of cauliflower and a whole bunch of spices. No American recipe would use 1/2 tsp of ground black pepper, 1 tsp of cumin, 1/4 tsp of paprika, 1/4 tsp of turmeric, 1/8 tsp of cayenne and a 1/4 cup of flat parsley.

I was supposed to put the onions and garlic in a non-stick skillet, add the cauliflower and spices and when the cauliflower was soft, add the egg mixture. Okay, and are you ready for this? Wait for the eggs to set and then put it in the broiler. Yeah, fine except I had been cooking in a non-stick and then I realized -- I'm going to transfer this to an oven safe skillet! Just a reminder that we all need to be on our guard! Thank God for those cast iron skillets I've been dragging around with me since my earliest cooking days. If I can get government approval to make this dish again, I'd use a Dutch oven next time.

The dish was really good. My only complaint was that I thought it might be a little salty. An easy adjustment. My wife and I liked it so much that we had seconds. Even our spice shy daughter said she loved it. Sometimes she sings herself to sleep with "It's a Grand Old Flag," or "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy." I figure, if she likes it, it's safe for the rest of America.