It’s the dead of winter here in Minnesota, and everyone I know is baking again–so it’s time to review the basic recipe from my BreadIn5 books. Back when the cookbooks first came out (2007!), authors didn’t generally put their most important recipe out on a website for free.
I took a different approach.
You can really teach people a new method, and communicate with them in near real-time (about problems they’re having with recipes). That means using this technology to let people sample the method, and comment back. So this is one of my sites most popular posts, and it contains the most important method that really made these books a success–the stored-dough recipe for a round European-style loaf, that tastes better the longer you let the dough age in the fridge (to a point–up to 14 days with this dough, in this post!). Here’s the recipe, from The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.
It’s Mother’s Day this weekend and if you are celebrating your Mom or any other women in your life, we have a lovely (and easy!) coffeecake for you to put together. It is made with my 5 minute no-knead brioche and a delicious strawberry-rhubarb filling, but in a pinch you can use your favorite store-bought jam to substitute. There’s also coffeecake in Blueberry if that is more your jam (pun intended).
Strawberry Rhubarb Streusel Coffeecake
Streusel Topping
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup almond flour or oats
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
Strawberry Rhubarb Filling
1 cup rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch pieces 3 ounces strawberries 1/4 cup granulated sugar (if your rhubarb is really tart, you can add up to 1/2 cup sugar total, however the streusel and icing will add a lot of sweetness, so it’s better to keep the jam slightly on the tart side) Pinch salt
Icing 2 ounces cream cheese, room temperature 2 tablespoons milk Pinch salt 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1 to 1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
Prepare the streusel topping: In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the all-purpose flour, sugars, almond flour, salt, and cinnamon on low. With the mixer on low, add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture comes together but still is quite crumbly.
Prepare the fruit filling: Place the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, and salt into a medium pan and simmer over medium-low heat for about 30 to 40 minutes, stirring often, until the rhubarb and strawberries have broken down and the jam has thickened. The jam will cling to a wooden spoon when it is done. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate the jam until ready to use. (Taste your jam – if it is a little flat, you can add a squeeze or two of lemon juice – about 1/2 teaspoon at a time, until it brightens the flavor.)
Grease an 8-inch springform cake pan with butter and dust with flour. Set aside. Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1-pound piece. Divide the piece in two, dust with more flour, and quickly shape each piece into a rough ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go.
Roll the balls out into two 1/4-inch thick rounds, about 9 inches across. As you roll out the dough, add flour as needed to prevent sticking. Place one of the dough rounds in the bottom of the prepared pan.
Top with half of the fruit filling and and sprinkle half the streusel topping over it. Repeat with the remaining dough round, fruit filling, and streusel.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature for 90 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350F, with a rack placed in the center of the oven. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes.
While the cake is baking, prepare the icing: In a small bowl, mix the cream cheese, milk, salt, and vanilla until smooth. Add 1 cup of the confectioners’ sugar and mix again until smooth. If the mixture is too thin, add more powdered sugar until the desired consistency is reached.
Move the cake pan to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Pour the icing over the cake, and then let it continue cooling for 20 minutes.
Remove the cake from the springform pan while it is still warm.
Part of the essence of the perfect New York pretzel is the way they look. Philadelphia has a pretzel culture too, but you’d never confuse it with its northern cousin, due to the shape. Philly has figure-8 knots and New York has well… pretzel shape. Admittedly, it’s nostalgia that makes me partial to the New York version. And you really should serve these homemade soft pretzels with mustard to complete the experience, grainy preferred.
Tiny baked buns filled with ham, cheese, mustard, mayo, honey and covered in poppyseeds – what’s not to love? I came across the idea for these ham and cheese brioche sandwiches while paging through cookbooks, and immediately headed to the kitchen to make them. With all the ham, cheese, mayo, and butter, I wanted to keep the brioche buns on the lighter side, so I used our no-knead challah dough–it’s basically a light brioche. Plus, my family swoons every time I make it. I wasn’t wrong. These buns are delicious, and they are perfect for every occasion. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, baby showers, pool parties, even Father’s Day.
People often ask us why we only used all-purpose flour (where we called for white flour) in The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Why not “bread” flour, which is higher in protein and is often considered traditional in bread? Well, not in all traditions. French baguettes, for example, are typically made with lower-protein flour for a more tender, and less chewy crumb. And we knew most of our potential book users already had all-purpose flour in the house. But sometimes, a stiffer dough is desirable, like when something really needs to hold its shape, like these wreath-shaped, well… bagels. You can always swap bread flour into our recipes that call for all-purpose, just by adding a little extra water (details below). Read More
I’ve recently become obsessed with Gary Cooper – not theGary Cooper, but a decadent donut breakfast that a local Minneapolis diner serves, named after Mr. G.C. The diner is the Hi-Lo Diner, a new establishment that serves a fancy item called a Hi-Top, which is essentially a donut piled high with either sweet or savory ingredients. The Gary Cooper is my favorite hi-top on the menu, it’s covered with buttermilk fried chicken, maple-bourbon syrup, country gravy, and micro arugula. I decided to try and recreate this number in my own kitchen, using our no-knead brioche dough for the donut base, and then building the rest with maple syrup, mashed potatoes, gravy, and crispy chicken. It was incredibly delicious, and although this dinner will be a special occasion treat in at my house, it was worth all the effort.
It’s a New Year. Regardless of your political convictions and leanings, one thing we should all agree on is that pretzel rolls need to be on our 2017 agenda. Easier to make than pretzels (no shaping and twisting and forming!), these rolls taste amazing on their own, or sliced open and made into sandwiches. I can’t decide how I like them best, but I do know they are on my baking list every single week. (You can find regular pretzels and baked pretzels on our site as well!)
Cover and let rest for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. This will depend on what else you have going on and how chilly your kitchen is.
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Uncover the loaf and use a Pastry Brush to paint with water.
Because this baker has a lid it traps the internal moisture of the dough, almost like a Dutch Oven, to create a shiny, crisp crust. Since it has the small holes, the crust will also color nicely during the baking without having to remove the cover.
Bake for about 45 minutes. If you open the lid and it is not yet golden brown, let it bake another 5 minutes.
Let the bread cool in the baker for 5 minutes
Turn the loaf out of the pan after 5 minutes and then let cool completely.
After you’ve enjoyed some of your bread you can slip it back into the baker to store it on the counter.
Since the cover has holes the loaf won’t get soggy, but it is protected enough to keep the bread from staling as quickly. It also happens to keep nosey puppies from the counter.
Here is the loaf baked in a regular loaf pan. You can see that the crust is pale and dull looking in comparison. It was still as tasty, but without the trapped steam the loaf just wasn’t as appealing. You’d have to add steam to the oven if you were to bake it in this style pan.
Lesaffre Yeast Corp. (Red Star) provided samples of yeast for recipe testing, and sponsors BreadIn5’s website and other promotional activities. Emile Henry provided bakeware and sponsorship.
Mary Hunt blogs at EveryDayCheapskate.com, and she’s put up a marvelous review of “The New Artisan Bread…” When you visit, scroll down and you’ll see the holiday gift basket she’s put together, plus some very kind words:
“I may as well be president of the Artisan-In-Five fan club. for how this book and its method changed my life…”
We are insanely flattered. Epicurious.com, which is the food website of Conde Nast, publisher of Bon Appetit and the late, lamented Gourmet, has named The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day as one of the 53 greatest cookbooks of all time. That’s our book in their picture, right in the middle of some very exhalted company. Bakers like Dorie Greenspan, Julia Child, Peter Reinhart. We’re hyperventilating. Thanks for the shout-out, Epicurious:
“We were surpised that more baking books weren’t nominated… all the baking frontrunners are bread books. The panel’s favorites were Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, and The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart.”
