Crock Pot Bread Baking (Fast Bread in a Slow Cooker)

BreadIn5 961 Comments

Crock Pot Bread Baking (Fast Bread in a Slow Cooker) | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Bread in a crock pot? Over the years there’ve been reader requests to develop a method of baking dough in a crock pot. The crock pot does indeed get hot enough, and it takes less time than using your oven, because the rising time is included in the baking. The crust, however, is very soft and quite pale when it comes out of the slow cooker, but just a few minutes under a broiler and you get a gorgeous loaf. It is just perfect for summer baking when you don’t want to heat up your oven. You could even amaze your friends at work by baking a loaf under your desk! Check with your crock-pot’s manufacturer before trying this, since some model’s instructions specify that the pot has to be at least partially filled with liquid to avoid safety or durability problems.  And never bake  in a crock-pot unattended.

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Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day is Released in Taiwan!

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chinese translation of healthy bread in five

Thanks to our friends at iG publishing in Taiwan (Republic of China-ROC), Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day has appeared in Asia in Chinese translation (bakers in Taiwan, click here to buy at Eslite, or at Kingstone).  This translation, the first ever for “Healthy Bread,” joins our existing overseas versions of the first book (Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day), one in Great Britain, and our first Chinese translation for mainland China.

And another Asian version is on the way– next year, a Japanese translation of “Artisan Bread” will be published in Tokyo by Rakkousha.  We are told that Asia is the fastest-growing bread market in the world…

Gluten Free Pizza (Locally Foraged Toppings, the Gifts of Spring!)

jeff 51 Comments

This week I had the tremendous pleasure of doing an event with the Minnesota Food Bloggers. The group is held together with the love and sweat of Stephanie Meyer and includes 450 passionate food lovers. The group gets together about once a month to celebrate what is exciting and new in the Minneapolis food scene, which is growing larger and more exciting every day. Stephanie invited me to do a pizza class for the group, and I jumped at the chance. An excuse to hang out with this group and an opportunity to get them all tossing dough in the air and baking pizza. The venue was also a tremendous draw for me, we did this giant pizza party at the Kitchen in the Market. A fully equipped professional kitchen run by the sweet, sassy and talented duo Molly McDonald Herrmann and Tracy Morgan. Here is a lovely post of the party by Sarah Kieffer whose site  The Vanilla Bean Blog is just beautiful.

We made dough from Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day the kind made specifically for tossing high in the air. The dough for tossing is made with Bread Flour, so it is a bit stronger and can handle being thrown as high as you dare. The group has several folks who are on a gluten free diet, so we had our gluten free crust available to them. The g-f crust is tasty and makes a brilliant pizza, but can’t be tossed high in the air and needs to be handled in a different way from traditional dough.  Below are our instructions for the no-fail gluten free crust. But, before I roll out the dough, I want to say a little about the toppings. There are some gifts that are priceless…so rare, so precious and so fleeting that they make you want to weep. Kathy Yerich, one of the partners of Rouge Pottery, brought me such a gift at the pizza party. She went foraging for morel mushrooms, ramps (spring onions) and nettles and brought them to me in a basket. The contents of this basket were almost too gorgeous to eat, but I managed and made this pizza, which my husband said “tastes like summer!” What a gift. Read More

Braided Fruit Danish… with video!

jeff 50 Comments

Braided danish from artisan bread in five minutes a day

It’s not really braided.  Here’s another, with savory fillings from an earlier post; same idea but with Spinach, Feta, and Pine Nuts.

The trick is not difficult, check out the video of how it’s done (recipe is below)…

The Recipe:
1 1/2 pounds (cantaloupe-sized portion) Brioche dough (can swap Challah dough from our first book for a lighter effect)

1/2 cup softened cream cheese or substitute almond cream (blend 1/2 cup almond paste with 1/4 cup softened butter, 1/4 cup flour, 1 egg, and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract in a food processor; freeze excess)

1/2 cup raspberry or strawberry jam or preserves

1 cup fresh raspberries or sliced strawberries

Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of water)

Sugar for dusting the top

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
Roll out the dough into a narrow rectangle 1/8-inch thick.
Place the dough onto the lined cookie sheet.  Cover the center third of the dough with the cream, jam, and berries as in the video.
Use a pizza wheel to cut about 12 strips down each side; each strip should be about 1/2-inch wide.  Fold the strips, left over right, crisscrossing the filling.  Allow to rest for 40 minutes (20 in a pinch).
Preheat the oven to 375F.  Brush with egg wash and sprinkle generously with sugar.
Place cookie sheet in center of the oven and bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling.  Can serve slightly warm.

And we have a savory version, with spinach, feta, and pine nuts…

toast

Perfect Toast

jeff 16 Comments

My favorite breakfast is a homemade bread, toasted to perfection, fruit preserves, and a cup of freshly brewed coffee. I know it sounds simple, but getting that bread to caramelize and crisp up on the outside, but have a soft interior, isn’t always as easy as you may think. We’ve heard from some readers that they have a difficult time toasting, so here are some simple steps to getting a perfect slice. Read More

We’re on TV in Phoenix with Grilled Pizza: Thanks KPNX-12News (NBC)

jeff 6 Comments

We are ready for warmer weather (50 degrees yesterday in Minneapolis!), and that means grilled pizza.  There’s no better place for that than Phoenix, which is Minneapolis’s alter-ego– it’s pretty hot for indoor pizza-baking in the summertime (which is coming!).  So we journeyed south a couple of weeks ago to do a  demo of grilled pizza on the NBC affiliate down there– and soak up a little sunshine.  We also taught again at Barbara Fenzl’s Les Gourmettes Cooking School.  Thanks for an appreciative group, Barbara!

One thing to explain though, hostess Destry Jetton said that this was cracker-crust pizza on the grill–it’s not.  Everything we showed in Phoenix was Neapolitan-style thickness, about 1/8 to 1/4-inch.  We do have lots of directions for both kinds of pizza in Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day.