Five Minute Bread

I love homemade bread!  Actually, I love all carbs, but that’s another story.

We used to make  bread in the bread machine all the time.  Philip was actually quite good at it and made a yummy cinnamon bread that the two of us could finish off in a day or two.  That was before we had children.  Now we’d have to share was those little vultures.

Alas, our homemade bread-making days came to an end when I was pregnant with Pumpkin Girl and the very smell of baking bread made me ill.  I get a Super Sensor Nose when I’m pregnant – I once walked by a store display of Easter chocolate and could smell the chocolate right through the boxes.  So that was the end of the bread making.

We never really got back into it after my nose returned to normal.  With 2 little kids I just never found the time.  The bread machine was given away at some point and we made due with store bought.

I keep wanting to get back to it, but just never did.  Then after a vague conversation with my mom about a starter dough in the fridge that isn’t really sourdough and a chance blog post – I realized I’d stumbled on my answer.

Why didn’t anyone tell me about Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day! Apparently the book has been around for a while and I just totally missed the boat.  It really is as easy as it sounds, with no fancy equipment or hard to find ingredients. Not even any kneading!  I even mixed the dough by hand with ease.

Here’s my first loaf:

Kind of small, but I attribute that to living at high altitude. Sort of funny shaped, too, but that was my fault. As small as it looks, the whole loaf easily fed our family of five. (We had it with spaghetti, not as sandwiches.)  We had 2 slices left over, which didn’t last the night. (I won’t mention the little piggy who at the last slices as dessert. ahem)  I went to the authors’ blog and found a couple of very easy adjustments to make for the higher altitude.

I made another loaf a couple of days later from the same batch of dough.  I shaped it better, but I can’t show you because we scarfed it down before I could take a picture.  But it was just as yummy as the first loaf.

I can’t believe it – I’m back in homemade bread heaven!

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