Monday, March 24, 2008

Bread Adventures

My sister sent me a challenge -- or maybe it was more of a request. This is the same fabulous sister who helped me reorganize my whole studio, shop, and part of my home -- the organizational genius! How could I possibly refuse her anything??

A friend had sent her the base recipe from a book called
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois and, since I'm the bread baker in the family, she wanted me to try it first and work out any kinks there might be in the recipe. Then, when we get together the next time, I can show her how to do it. She is particularly interested in trying to get a result like one of her favorite, very expensive, specialty bakery loaves.




Here is my first attempt at Pan d’Epi, as it sits restin
g, along with a standard boule. I think my dough may be too wet, or perhaps it had not aged long enough (only about 26 hours), so the shapes didn't hold quite as well as I had hoped they would. It was still a lot of fun. Here's the final feast photo -- at least part of the feast. There's a blueberry pie I just had to include in the photo, along with some lovely French wine and a large salad of mixed greens. Yum!



The bread was a huge success! As I said, the dough didn't hold the pretty shapes as well as I had hoped, but it was delicious and I do mean "was". It's all gone. So, I know this isn't the usual kind of blog material, but I just had to post some pictures so that my sister and her friend could see how everything came out.

I'll actually have some Stampeaz news to post very shortly. I have cool new stuff. :)



5 comments:

ipsquibibble said...

Mmmm...that's beautiful looking bread. Well done! Poodle Dudes

Jimmy said...

I can never get bread to come out right.

Unknown said...

So...can you share the recipe? :)

LW

Webfoot said...

Yes, I can share the recipe -- I can even do better than that! :) The authors have done several demonstrations and there are a number of videos available that show exactly how to mix, shape and bake this basic recipe. Here's a demo and interview link from the Chicago Tribune.

Webfoot said...

They've moved the video to here and the authors' Web site is artisanbreadinfive.com.

I have a very cool new story to tell about the great bread adventure, but that's going to be an upcoming blog post. :)