Many people have written in to ask about assembling the Blueberry Lemon Curd Ring from page 228. I already had a bucket of Brioche dough, and some lemons rolling around in my refrigerator, so this ring was simple to throw together.
The brightness of the lemon and berries is perfect folded into the rich Brioche dough. The ring is simple enough to make on any day of the week, but so impressive that you can serve it on special occasions.
This is the fastest bread in the book and naan is absolutely delicious and it takes no forethought. The traditional Indian flatbread is made in a blazing hot tandoor oven and then brushed with melted ghee (clarified butter). We assumed that most of our readers would not have a tandoor oven so we decided to make this in a cast iron pan on the stove top. We cook the dough in ghee or butter so that it has the same flavor as the traditional bread, with so much less work. This bread can be made using just about every dough in the book; spinach feta, whole wheat, master, olive, and herb–even brioche dough, which can be fried in butter, drizzled with a little maple syrup and finished it with powdered sugar. It was just like the fried dough at the State Fair and only took a couple of minutes. Read More
Here is yet another way to get a fabulous crust on your bread without using any steam in the oven. An unsophisticated disposable lasagna pan is an option but here’s another idea. Baking bread in a Dutch oven is a very old idea. All the iron-pot methods are based on the old European technique of baking inside a closed clay pot. Most people don’t have one of those, but enameled cast-iron pots are readily available—and they trap all of the internal moisture in the dough and that creates the steam you need to get a crisp and shiny crust. It really is fantastic and it works perfectly with our stored doughs from the book. Read More
(photo by Mark Luinenburg)
Pita bread is a simple, unadorned flatbread that dates back to antiquity. You simply roll out your favorite non-enriched dough as thin as possible and bake it on a hot stone. There is no resting time or other ingredients to prepare, so you can have it in a matter of moments. Despite its simplicity pita is one of the tastiest breads around. Perhaps it is all of the surface area and the soft chewy crumb? During the winter, this is great on a hot baking stone in the oven (without steam), but in the summer you can do it on the grill, directly on the grate.
For what ever reason some ovens just don’t trap steam very well. This is true of professional equipment, but some home ovens behave this was as well. The reason to care…if you don’t trap steam in the oven for the first 10 minutes of baking you will end up with a dull, lackluster crust, even if you use a good baking stone (which is essential for great free-form loaves).
There are a couple different ways to achieve this, including the tried and true misting bottle. You use a food grade spray bottle and mist the bread every minute for the first 10 minutes. This requires you to stick close to the oven and open the door repeatedly to spray. A bit more work than I’m generally willing to do, but it will give you a nice result. Here is a much easier way: Read More
Here is a classic fall recipe with a twist. It is a lovely and quick dessert, especially if you have a bucket of brioche on hand. For those of you who do not already own The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, here is the recipe and it can be used for all of these wonderful treats: caramel sticky buns, grilled fruit tart, fresh fruit muffins, Brioche à tête, apricot pastries and fabulous doughnuts! Actually the possibilities are endless, just use your imagination and let us know what treats you’ve come up with. Read More
Great minds think alike! 😉 Jeff and I both felt compelled to blog about tomatoes this month. Probably our last ditch effort to use them before we head into the tomato-free season of winter. I swore I’d learn to can this year, but alas the summer and all of its gorgeous fruit has come and gone and I have nothing to show for it. So in these last days of summer we cling desperately to what will soon be just a lovely memory, the tomato. Read More
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Main kid-goal these days is to find new and interesting ways to entice kids out of bed in the morning. What seems to motivate them to leave their cozy beds is the promise of something tasty to eat. One morning: Cinnamon-Raisin toast. It did the trick, albeit slowly… Read More
As many of you now know my house is not air conditioned and it is creeping up into the 80s and 90s every day. So the idea of turning on my oven to bake a pizza is less than a thrilling one. To the grill I go, which we all know by now is not only “man’s” work. I love to grill and with this heat I’ve been doing a lot of it.
My son had a sleep over last night and they wanted pizza for dinner. I pulled out my bucket of dough, rolled it out and they loaded them up with toppings. Instead of baking the pizza directly on the grates, I preheated the grill with my pizza stone to 500° and slid the pizza directly onto the stone. I love the bottom crust on these pizzas, it is always nice and crisp. The topping takes a few more minutes to bubble, but it will eventually. Read More
I just bought herbs to plant in my garden. Unlike my girlfriend Anne Phyfe who lives in Seattle and has a hedge of rosemary in her yard, all year round, I have to replant mine every spring and hope for enough to get me through the season. After I planted the rosemary my hands were perfumed with that fresh herbaceous scent. I was moved to cut off some of the new delicate stems and bake it into the baguette that was rising on the counter. The result was a crust that had the light smell and taste of rosemary. Read More