Special techniques Archives - Page 4 of 12 - Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Fresh Bread made with Older Dough

May 20, 2015December 17, 2022 BreadIn5 38 Comments

You may open a bucket of dough that’s been untouched for several days or more and find it’s gray, leathery and has some liquid on it (pictures below), with a strong “sourdough” smell to it, since it had been fermenting for a very long time. For those of us who like that kind of character in our bread, it’s great. The best thing to do with this older dough is to incorporate it into a new batch. It jump starts the flavor in your new dough, without having to wait days for the fermentation. It is like having a sourdough starter, that you never had to feed.

Weighing The Ingredients: Whole Grain Baguette Buns With Extra Sourdough Kick

March 30, 2015November 25, 2025 jeff 224 Comments

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In this post, I’ll go through the method for using a kitchen scale to measure in flour and other ingredients, which some readers, especially outside the U.S., have said they prefer. In this recipe for whole grain baguette buns, I used these weight equivalents for scoop-and-swept cup measures:

1 cup white all-purpose flour: 5 ounces / 140 grams (or 141.7, to be more precise)

1 cup whole wheat flour: 4.5 ounces / 130 grams (127.6)

1 cup water: 8 ounces / 225 grams (226.8)

Most home scales aren’t accurate enough to weigh small quantities of yeast and salt for single recipes.

These whole grain baguette buns are from The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, being cut from a baguette-shaped cylinder, which gives the buns crusty little edges that will impress your guests. They’re incredibly easy to make from any of the lean stored doughs that you already have in your fridge, mixed up from our book. Read More

Garlic Fougasse

December 2, 2014January 16, 2024 jeff 11 Comments

This is the season of soup. It’s cold outside here in Minnesota and there’s nothing better than a cup of hot soup. Oh, and there’s all that leftover turkey to deal with and the beautiful butternut squash proliferation at the grocery store. To go with all that soup you’ll be making, there’s nothing better than homemade bread. This fougasse is a traditional Provencale French flatbread. It is both crispy, due to all that crusty surface and tender on the inside. It’s like a fancy breadstick. Because it is a flatbread, it is faster to make, since you have such a short resting time. To go with an aromatic soup, I added lots of chopped garlic to the bread dough and the result is fantastic. Read More

Onion Poppy Seed Twist Bread

October 9, 2014May 4, 2019 jeff 45 Comments

Onions and poppy seeds have to be the most aromatic and delicious combination of flavors. They have been featured on Jewish breads from Bialys, Pletzels and Bagels for centuries. This onion poppy seed twist bread is a new twist (sorry, couldn’t resist the bad pun) on the classics. I started with whole wheat bread, spread the savory filling on the dough, rolled it up and then cut the log in two before twisting them together, so you can see the filling peek out. The result is beautiful, but the best part of this loaf if the aroma as it bakes. Read More

Apple and Honey Challah

September 23, 2014May 4, 2019 jeff 31 Comments

Tomorrow I will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, with family and friends. It is traditional to eat lots of honey and apples during this high holy day to usher in the new year with sweetness. The challah dough from The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is made with honey, then I fold chopped apples into the dough and braid it into a circle. You can do any shape you like, but the circle is meant to symbolize the full cycle of the coming year. This bread may be ubiquitous at the high holy days, but it is wonderful anytime, especially during apple picking season here in the Midwest.

Dutch Crunch Bread

September 8, 2014April 3, 2019 jeff 36 Comments

How is it that I’d never tried Dutch Crunch bread, never even heard of it? It’s a loaf that seems to be ubiquitous in the San Francisco area, and it would seem that they have been keeping it all for themselves. Now that I’ve had it I can’t blame them. Dutch Crunch gets its name from a similar bread found in the Netherlands, which is called Tiger Bread (tijgerbrood or tijgerbol). It’s easy to see how it got that name. The tiger spots are created by covering the dough with a slurry of rice flour, sugar, yeast and toasted sesame oil. The fragrance of the sesame is fantastic and the slightly sweet crispy bits on the loaf are hard to resist picking off and snacking on before you ever cut into the bread. Read More

Cinnamon Rolls-On-A-Stick: perfect for the Minnesota State Fair

August 26, 2014December 5, 2022 BreadIn5 215 Comments

The MN State Fair is open, so the annual food-on-a-stick showdown has begun. This is an update of an old post–a few years ago, Jeff and I presented our bread methods and introduced our latest and greatest achievement; Bread-on-a-Stick at booth run by St. Agnes Baking Company, in the Creative Arts Building.

Doughnuts

July 28, 2014September 17, 2024 jeff 39 Comments

I was thrilled when doughnuts took over as the “hot dessert trend” from the fanciful cupcake. I do like cupcakes, but they don’t excite me like a freshly made doughnut. These days you can find gourmet doughnut shops popping up all over. They offer the classic flavors along with some very exotic, even esoteric combinations. I’ve seen everything from bacon to rose petals on a doughnut. I’ve tried every combination I can find and for me it all comes down to the dough. I like soft, airy yeast dough and it should be slightly sweet, but not overly so. The gourmet shops use great ingredients and treat their dough with TLC, so they often cost a small fortune. Truth is, homemade doughnuts are super easy and quick to make, especially with our five minute dough. You can make them as fancy or simple as you like and they only cost about 20 cents each, add a few cents for the bacon and rose petals! 😉 Read More

Braided Peasant Bread

February 24, 2014January 18, 2026 BreadIn5 54 Comments

Braiding doesn’t just have to be for sweets. I found myself with some 2-week-old dough (truth be told it was closer to 3 weeks) and it was a little wet to shape a nice tall boule. We always recommend using older dough for flatbreads or baking it in a loaf pan, since it can lose some of its rising power in the later stages of storing. Well, it turns out this older dough makes a wonderful braided peasant bread loaf, with lots of flavor and a really open crumb. Because the braid isn’t as domed as a boule, the older dough has all the rising power it needs.

My dough was made with all-purpose flour, a bit of rye, whole wheat and Platinum yeast by Red Star. Like I said, it was almost 3 weeks old, but this technique can also be done with fresh dough and really any of our doughs, not just the Peasant dough recipe will work great. Read More

Savory Bread Pudding – how to use up leftover bread

January 15, 2014May 4, 2019 jeff 38 Comments

When we wrote our first book we were testing dozens of loaves a week, and despite our healthy appetites, we just couldn’t consume all that we baked. Our neighbors were happy to take some of the bread, but there was more than a city block could consume, so we started making all kinds of recipes using up the leftovers. There are beautiful salads and puddings that are perfect for leftover (even stale) bread. In the New ABin5 we added this Savory Bread Pudding, which can be made with just about any loaf you bake. Well, I may have found the exception…I tried this recipe with some leftover Panettone and my very opinionated and vocal family requested that I not use that particular bread again for this. My husband described it as Thanksgiving stuffing, but richer. I liked it, but I was alone. The panettone does make exquisite sweet bread pudding however. They all agreed that peasant bread and/or challah is the way to go. The peasant and challah breads allow the flavors of the caramelized onions, spinach, spices and cheese to shine through. It is perfect for breakfast (a little bacon in the mix would be fabulous) or as a side dish with dinner.

This week I got a chance to bake with Elizabeth Ries and Chris Egert on KSTP-TV’s show Twin Cities Live. They are great sports and we had fun tossing pizzas together, one of them is a bit more skilled at the toss, but I won’t mention names.