ABi5: Basic Boule with Variations (Herb Bread, Cheddar Cheese Bread, Cranberry Pecan Bread)

[fitfool]

So have you been practicing baking bread since my last post about using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method? I hope a few of you tried it. I had promised to come back with variations and then got busy with other things. (No wait, I mean...I wanted to give you a chance to practice the basic version first

Comments

[sight]

tasty lookin! i shall try this!

[fitfool]

Cool...let me know what you think of it if you do :)

[dirigibles]

I still haven't tried this, but I have been thinking about it every time I buy bread at the store, ever since your initial post!

[fitfool]

I was able to get to a point of making bread I thought was as good as the stuff I got at the grocery store pretty quickly. Nowhere near as good as at my favorite bakery but I'll be lucky to ever come close to his bread.

[alchemi]

That is some tasty looking bread.

[fitfool]

Thanks

[imaginarycircus]

I used to bake bread for a living. :D

[fitfool]

I'm jealous. I'd love to get some proper guidance on how to make bread.

[imaginarycircus]

It sounds like you are doing just fine. Your bread looks great and sounds like it is also tasty.

[fitfool]

Thanks. My problem is that I've been spoiled by Mamadou's Artisan Bakery in Winchester, MA. Seriously amazing bread. Some of the best bread I've ever tasted anywhere. It's well worth the drive over just to get some of his bread. I'm happy about my bread's progress but it's still so far from achieving anything resembling Mamadou's.

[von_krag]

I've found using a hunk of saved dough from the last batch really helps flavor wise I much prefer Saf-Instant yeast over the stuff in a supermarket http://search.kingarthurflour.com/search.jsp?N=0&rt=p&Ntt=saf+instant&x=0&y=0

[marveen]

That's what I use, and so much cheaper than Fleishmann's or whatever--the local Winco carries a pound of SAF Red for under four dollars.

[fitfool]

I saw Winco for the first time when I was out in Idaho. What an awesome store! Wish we had them out here.

[fitfool]

Oh I've been meaning to try that. I keep forgetting though. So if I were to try that with this method, would I just leave a little bit of the dough from last time in the plastic container and mix the next batch right in with it?

I had also seen the Saf-instant yeast on the King Arthur website before but I haven't needed to buy more yeast yet so I haven't tried that yet. Thanks for the recommendation! I'll try that next time.