Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

No Knead Bread in Five Minutes... Ok, right when you think that the No Knead Bread had been perfected, out comes a recipe for bread dough that you can leave in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. You can take and use how ever much of the refrigerated dough to bake some bread for that day. The recipe comes from: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. I had to try it ...though, I must admit I love the Cook's Illustrated version. This is convenient in that you can store it in the fridge and I like the fact that you can make rolls. The actual recipe has you make bigger loaves of bread , but I thought what better way than to change it and do the rolls instead. But, really I don't know where the five minutes a day comes into play except for the actual time it may take you to form dough into rolls.

Since my husband loves these rolls, I think that I will be making them in the future again! They go great with saucy entrees...and steak sandwiches! Crusty and chewy....

~The rolls in the pictures are made that same day without refrigeration. So, you won't see the nice blisters in the dough. You will see it in the steak sandwich post, though.

You will need:

3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
6 1/2 cups unsifted, all-purpose flour

Directions:

1. Warm the water to about 100 degrees. Add the yeast and the salt to the water in a 5 or 6 quart, resealable, lidded plastic food container.
2. Then add all of the flour at once. Mix with a wooden spoon, until everything is uniformly moist with no dry areas. Should take no longer than a few minutes.
3. Cover with a plastic bag or plastic wrap...leave some room for air .

4. Allow to rise about two hours. The dough is quite wet...different from most doughs.

5. Put the dough in the refrigerator overnight or for at least three hours. I have done some rolls without refrigerating...just as good. But, when it is refrigerated it forms nice little blisters on the crust ....makes it look awesome!

6. On baking day, I just use a cookie sheet(rimmed and parchment lined) and form rolls(however many I want) and let rise for about 40 minutes (or until you noticed that it has risen to almost double) and then bake.

Or you can make bread boules....bigger in size. I like the rolls as it has more crust and you can make wonderful mini steak sandwiches!
7. Sprinkle the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour. Pull up and cut off a grapefruit size piece of dough for the bread boules or form into small rolls. The dough is quite wet... I found that if I flour my hands and the dough too much the rolls didn't rise as much as if when I used wet hands(using water ) to form the rolls. The directions say to flour your hands. Do whatever is easier for you.
8. Rest the bread boule or rolls on the cookie sheet for 40 minutes. I used parchment paper to line the cookie sheet. Thirty minutes before you are ready to bake the loaf, preheat the oven to 500 degrees with a baking stone on the middle rack.Use an empty metal roasting pan or broiler tray for holding water on the shelf below.
9. Dust the bread with flour and then slice about 1/4 of an inch slashes into the bread. You can do them in any pattern you see fit. I did leave some unslashed...but found they rise better when slashed ...and look better!
10. After the 30-minute preheat, Adjust oven to 450 deg. Open the oven. Slide the cookie sheet (rimmed) with rolls onto the stone. Quickly pour 1 1/2 cups of hot water into the roasting pan or broiler tray, shut the door and bake for about 30 minutes until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. Do not open the oven or the steam will escape. The steam helps make the crust.
11. Allow to cool completely .

Store the rest of the dough in your lidded, not airtight, container in the refrigerator up to 14 days!

****~ Check out the comment from Jeff Hertzberg~ it has a link to a video that you can watch. They show you how they do the master dough.