Bake Fresh Bread Every Day - Can You Really Do Artisan Bread Baking In Five Minutes a Day?

Pros

* Make a mess once a week instead of mixing up fresh dough every day. In fact, you can double your batch and only make a mess every two weeks.
* Quickly get the loaf ready for the oven.
* Forget about complicated equipment. You don't even need a loaf pan. I even used a cookie sheet to bake my raisin bread.

Cons

* You don't really end up with a fresh loaf of bread after five minutes. It takes about an hour and a half all together. However, you don't have to handle the bread for more than five minutes.
* You'll find yourself eating a lot of carbs with all that delicious fresh baked bread sitting in front of you every day. Of course, if you keep your slices small and add a tablespoon of peanut butter, you can still fit some of that fresh bread into a 400 calorie meal diet plan!

Full Review

I was a little skeptical when I brought home a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Me have time to bake fresh bread every day? I don't think so. Well, after a week, I can tell you that I was wrong. Artisan bread baking in five minutes a day is completely doable, although the five minutes is handling time, not the time it takes to cook the bread from start to finish.

I began, as the book recommends, with the basic Boule recipe. I doubled the batch because I hate to make big bread messes and the dough should keep for two weeks. I didn't have a baking stone, a special bread dough storage container or anything else fancy. The bread didn't care at all. I made several loaves of lovely artisan bread that I cooked right on a plain old cookie sheet with a small oven safe crock of water on one edge and it turned out just fine. It really did only take me about five minutes each day, although I had to start the bread about an hour and a half before I wanted to eat it.

I even got fancy today and modified the raisin bread recipe that comes later in the book to make some delicious raisin bread today. I think it took me about seven minutes because I had trouble finding my rolling pin. (Organizing your stuff to save time doesn't always work out, does it?) The end result was just delicious.

I haven't tried flatbreads and pizzas or peasant loaves yet, but if they're anything like the simple Boule recipe, I'll be quite happy. I'm so pleased with how easy everything was that I plan to buy the new Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day book when it comes out in 2011, too.

In Closing

Overall, I was very pleased with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. As busy as I am in the morning, I really can whip up fresh bread every day. The book is really easy to understand and I didn't need any fancy equipment.

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