The heat wave isn’t nearly as bad in Minnesota as it is in on the East coast, but I can’t say that I’m itching to fire up the oven and bake fresh buns for hot dogs or bratwurst.  It’s a cinch to do it on the same grill that you use for your hot dogs or bratwurst, and this video shows you how.  Use any lean dough from either of our books, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, or Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. If anything in the video’s unclear, just visit back and post a question into the “Comments” field.

One word of caution:  I can’t vouch for the durability of baking stones placed on a gas grill.  I haven’t had any trouble with my half-inch thick stone but the thin ones crack at the drop of a hat.  My guess is that if you call any stone manufacturer, they will tell you not to do this.  None of them warrant stones against cracking (one company did in the past, but they’ve withdrawn that).   I haven’t been listening.

This summer, the son of one of our book’s first testers started a bread business and is delivering bread door to door, by bicycle, right here in Minneapolis.  Check out Bicycle Bread… They were recently featured in the Southwest Journal and were on TV, on Fox9 News (click here to view).

Another interesting little home-town business is the Gourmet Girls, who are making fresh breads using our books as the recipe resource.  Send an e-mail to inquire about homemade artisan bread via local delivery (southern Westchester County, NY).

Click here if you’d like to see the list of past postings on summer grill-breads again…

Grilled pizza:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=237

Pumpernickel done on the grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=245

Rustic fruit tart on the gas grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=267

Brioche on a grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=294

Bread on a Coleman stove while camping:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=318

Kohlrabi Greens Pizza right on the grates:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=846

Fruit pizza on the grill baked with the stone:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=248

Grilled flatbread, workhorse summer bread: http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=768

For the past month I have been traveling with my family in Turkey, Greece and Italy. Our goal was to eat as much bread, pizza, pita, pastries and gelato as we possibly could. We succeeded on all fronts and here is a quick look at some of the breads we devoured on our way.

Istanbul, Turkey. On our first day in Istanbul we were introduced to simit, which is as ubiquitous on the streets there as soft pretzels are in NYC. Not all of the vendors wear them on their heads, but they all have a personal flare to attract attention.

There were many bread shops, but our favorites were made fresh in the restaurants we visited.

This fresh pide (pita) was just one of many gorgeous breads being made from the wood oven at Ciya, our hands down favorite.

Here is a pide topped with a tomato, cheese and herb combination that was like nothing I’ve ever tasted, slightly tangy and rich. I will hunt for the recipe!

This is Serap, our friend and guide in Istanbul. Her presence was such a blessing and we ate and ate and ate together. She is a restauranteur in Vermont (Depot 62) and just happened to be in Turkey at the same time visiting her family. Not only did she introduce us to several traditional breads, but just about every sweet Istanbul has to offer as well.

This is a flatbread that is rolled impossibly thin, stuffed with fragrant ingredients and cooked over the oven that looks like a wok turned upside down.

These boat shaped pitta breads were very much like a Turkish pizza, although they are often stuffed with meats and other ingredients that are very traditional to the Turkish cuisine, filled with herbs and spices we don’t associate with pizza at all.

Greece. What I will remember most about Greece are the unspeakably gorgeous beaches, the mountains that must have made the Spartans weep, the Rooster who lived next door to our rental house, 100 degree days and our entire family getting sick. Yep, we took turns laying quiet, trying to keep cool and not eating a whole lot. That is why you will see very few pictures of all the pita bread I had hoped to find there. Even on the days we did venture out of our lovely home we found bread and no pita, and not very exciting bread at that. I will just have to go back and try again.

The plate of perfect tomatoes, cucumbers, pungent onions, olive oil that tasted like it was pressed at the table and feta I’d move across the ocean to eat more of made up for the lack of pita.

Naples, Italy. The birthplace of pizza. The guidebooks warned us about the traffic, the pick pockets and grit, but they undersold the place, it is all those things, but also one of the most dynamic and visually stunning places I’ve been to. Despite being stopped by a fake cop in the Metro, who tried to fine us for bogus charges, and getting lost on the way to our hotel after dark, we fell in love with the place. At 10:30pm my son and I went out searching for our first pizza, while the other two stayed at the hotel to rest. About a block away we found Sorbillo and wished we’d booked more than 3 nights in Naples. The wait to get in on a Tuesday night at nearly 11pm was about 45 minutes, which had become a familiar dinner hour for us. The Italians eat late and eat well!

The next day on our way to the “ULTIMATE” pizza shop we stopped for a few fried morsels at Di Matteo. Some are made of deep fried stuffed pizza dough and others are a ball of rice that is filled with peas and spices.

This is the arancini di riso (rice ball) with meat and peas, which tasted as though it had a slightly sour tomato sauce binding it together. Again a taste that was unlike anything I’ve had, but that I will figure out.

Here we are waiting in the hour+ long line to get a pizza at da Michele, which is regarded as the best pizza in Naples. The line of locals waiting outside was indication that not only the foreign food critics are fond of this place, it is the real deal.

The trick is that the wood oven is cranked up, the dough is made with love and the ingredients are left pure and simple and as fresh as can be.

The pizzas at da Michele come in only two varieties, the Margherita and Marinara. No need for anything else.

On the day we went to Pompei we stopped at a meat shop that was reported to make the best sandwich in town, a break from pizza so my family wouldn’t revolt half way into the trip. The proprietor sliced up fresh salad ingredients and then tossed it with oil, vinegar and thin slices of salami. We felt very smart opening up our gorgeous sandwiches while everyone else queued up at the prepackaged Pompei tourist cafeteria.

Here is a bakery in Pompei that dates back to 79ad. The large hourglass shaped towers were flour mills and the oven is way in the back. Based on the amount of real-estate this bakery took up I imagine they were cranking out a whole lot of loaves.

Here are the boys climbing into one of the ovens, to give you scale of how huge the ovens were.

Once they were in the oven they took a picture of the roof, it is a piece of functional art work.

Once we returned to Naples it was all about pizzas again, this time we went to da Michele’s rival across the street. Trianon, unlike their neighbor offers up two pages of toppings to put on your pie.

We stuck to the traditional Margarita and it was good, but we all agreed that it wasn’t quite as good as da Michele.

The last day we had lunch at Di Matteo, this time to check out their pizza.

It was a wonderful last impression of the city that kept us well fed.

As we were leaving we got a fried pizza stuffed with fresh cheese, just to make sure we didn’t get hungry on our train ride to Rome.

And as a reward for eating all that pizza we indulged in at least a gelato a day. At least one, but usually 2 and sometimes 3!

Stay tuned for my adventures in Bread from Rome to Venice. Including baking in a wood fired oven in Tuscany.

As a doctor, I’m constantly being asked whether you can eat bread without gaining weight.  The evidence suggests that you can maintain a healthy weight by limiting your energy intake, whether your diet’s low-carb, low-fat, or has a balanced limitation of calories.  There’s no evidence that limiting calories from carbohydrates (like bread) is better than limiting it in fat or anywhere else.  I bake and eat lots of bread, and I don’t gain weight, even though I spend lots of time testing bread recipes for our books and website.  There’s some evidence that whole grain breads, like this 100% Whole Wheat Pita with Honey, are a better choice than refined white breads.

So I’ve been following Michelle Obama’s initiative to tackle childhood obesity: LetsMove.gov.  I keep hoping she’ll answer my e-mail about getting kids to bake the whole-grain breads for their families.  I may have to keep waiting on that one.  About this recipe…

The dough for this pita is from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, basically a variation on our Whole Grain Master.  Just omit the white flour, and increase the whole wheat to 7 cups (2 pounds/910 grams).  Decrease the water to 3 1/4 cups, and add 1/2 cup honey with the liquid ingredients.  As I show in the video, use a rolling pin and a dough scraper to get the dough thin (1/8-inch thick).

Because of the honey in this dough, it needs gentle heat– play with the grill controls to preheat a half-inch thick stone to 350 degrees F (that will take about a half hour).  I light all available burners under the stone.  If you go hotter, the honey in the dough will cause scorching.  Rolling to about 1/8-inch thick, the pita took about 12 minutes to bake, seven on the first side, then flipping to the second.  I use a gas grill pretty similar to the Weber Spirit E-210 (my model isn’t made anymore).  It’s tough to re-create these results with charcoal, but I know that some of you have been experimenting with it.

No excuse to quit baking bread in the summertime.  Some other ideas we’ve posted on:

Grilled pizza:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=237

Pumpernickel done on the grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=245

Rustic fruit tart on the gas grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=267

Brioche on a grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=294

Bread on a Coleman stove while camping:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=318

Kohlrabi Greens Pizza right on the grates:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=846

Fruit pizza on the grill baked with the stone:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=248

Grilled flatbread, workhorse summer bread: http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=768

Stay in touch with us on:

… our YouTube Channel: www.YouTube.com/user/BreadIn5

Twitter: www.Twitter.com/ArtisanBreadIn5

… or on Facebook (click here)

But first a bit of news that’s more important than how we started writing books (a publisher heard this call-in interview and made a book offer):  Zoe and I are well underway in writing our third book, tentatively titled Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day, and we have an interim deadline on July 5… so this is crunch time, and we probably won’t have time to answer many questions here on the website.  So please be patient… if you post a question, it may not appear immediately, and the same is true of our answers, but as always we will get to them.  The most immediate source for answers to your questions is often the FAQs page (click the tab above).

In the meantime, some summer breads you can do right on the gas grill:

Grilled pizza:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=237

Pumpernickel done on the grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=245

Rustic fruit tart on the gas grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=267

Brioche on a grill:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=294

Bread on a Coleman stove while camping:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=318

Kohlrabi Greens Pizza right on the grates:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=846

Fruit pizza on the grill baked with the stone:  http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=248

Grilled flatbread, workhorse summer bread: http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=768

OK… this video is really mainly an audio recording… we can’t vouch for this as a way of getting a cookbook idea noticed– it was a bit of dumb luck:

In case you have one of our lean doughs in the fridge (no enrichment or sweetener), but you want to bake up a morning bread or other sweet buttery thing, hope is not lost.  I started with our basic light whole wheat recipe, and rolled some delicious things into it.  More on that in a second, but first, these winners of last week’s King Arthur Flour Giveaway were notified by e-mail.

The Ancient Grains Gluten-Free Flour Blend: Lisa, Ephraim, Nora (the first one in the Comments), Jenny, and Chris (again, the first Chris).

Gluten-Free Flour Blend: Marie, Lori, Kate, Karen, Brie

I’ll need to hear from you with a snail-mail by 6/15 in order to claim the prize.  If there’s any doubt about people with the same first names that we didn’t catch– if you didn’t get an e-mail, you didn’t win a prize.

More about rolling in the fruit, brown sugar, and butter…As you see in the video, it’s quite easy to see how to get the “enrichers” into stored dough.  We’ve covered this before, in still photography posts here on the site.  The first time was for a Thanksgiving Corn Bread, and we talked about rolling the dough out to 1/2-inch thickness, and then more recently, a post on Cinnamon Swirl French Toast, where we rolled it to 1/8-inch.  Turns out there’s a lot of leeway; in my video above I talk about rolling it to 1/4-inch, but it actually looks thicker than that!  The prettier visual effects are achieved with the thinner roll-out but I just didn’t want to force you to watch me roll for longer than you needed to.

I didn’t end up shooting still shots of my cranberry-brown sugar-buttered whole wheat but it was terrific.  The links above have pictures that  show great examples of what you can get with this approach.

Stay in touch with us on:

… our YouTube Channel: www.YouTube.com/user/BreadIn5

Twitter: www.Twitter.com/ArtisanBreadIn5

… or on Facebook (click here)

If you don’t find the answer to your bread questions on the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) tab, we encourage you to post into any of our “Comments” fields by clicking on the line that says “Leave a Comment” or “X Comments” just under the date of each post.

But please remember, our blog/website is moderated.  That means that your comment doesn’t appear on our website until it has been approved, especially if you’ve never posted to our site before.  That could take up to 24 hours.  Here are some guidelines for comments that we are not willing to approve for our site:

1. References to commercial sites or endorsements for products, especially if the Authors haven’t used or otherwise can’t vouch for the product.  In particular, we’re not likely to approve website addresses (URLs) in this situation.
2. Health claims: The science behind health claims made by products is often murky and controversial.  We’re happy to answer questions about the health of ingredients or techniques in our books (or in other publications),  but please don’t make complex health claims here on the website.
3. Offensive or rude remarks: Usual manners apply!  (Thank you)
4. Pingbacks: Please don’t set up your own blog to insert Pingbacks into our site.

Pretty much everything else is fair game.  One other thing— very rarely, we simply miss someone’s comment.  It’s just an oversight; if we haven’t answered you in a day or more and you met the guidelines above, please “comment” again.

Return to FAQs page

The flour company I know and trust the most has come out with a gluten-free line of products.  King Arthur Flour now has mixes for brownies (which my family love), cakes, muffins and other quick and tasty treats. They also have many of the ingredients to make the breads from our gluten-free chapter in HBin5. I made these baguettes with the ancient grains and multi-purpose flour blends, both certified gluten-free. I love the ancient grains, which is a combination of amaranth, millet, sorghum and quinoa. It lends a whole grain flavor and look to the loaf, not to mention all the iron and fiber.

Many of you who are baking the gluten-free breads from our book have asked about making the dough without eggs. I had heard that using ground flax as a replacer was an option, but honestly I doubted it would work. Well, I am happy to report that I was wrong. I’m not sure yet about the science behind this substitution, but it works and provides a wonderful alternatives for those with egg sensitivities.

After testing the breads and loving the results I asked King Arthur if they would be willing to share some of these products with you. They have gladly agreed to send out 5 boxes each of the Ancient Grains and Multi-Purpose flours. See below for more details about the King Arthur Flour Giveaway:

I was introduced to the KAF gluten-free products by a nine year old boy during my trip to upstate NY to teach at the Battenkill kitchen last month. His father, who works at King Arthur had donated all of the flour for my classes. As we were loading up the flour the young man presented me with an arm load of gluten-free products and told me I had to try them. I could barely see him behind the boxes he carried, but had to explain how the airline would be upset with me if I tried to carry them home. His dad, with a look of slight surprise and great pride promised his son he would send them to me! He did just that and I’ve been testing them out ever since.

Just leave a comment below and we will pick 10 random winners next week.

Gluten-Free Baguettes:

makes 4 baguettes

1 1/2 cups KAF multi-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups KAF ancient grains

1 tablespoon yeast (we use Red Star and buy in bulk to save money)

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon xanthan

2 cups lukewarm water

2 tablespoons whole flax seeds (or 2 large eggs)

1/3 cup water to mix with flax (not needed if using eggs)

3 tablespoon oil (I’ve used one with neutral flavor or olive oil)

1 tablespoon honey

To make the egg substitute:

I found this egg replacer on the wonderful Vegan Baking post. Grind the flax seeds in a Spice Grinder until it is a fine powder.

Stir together the powered flax with 1/3 cup of water.

After the mixture has sat for about 3-5 minutes will get gelatinous and quite egg like. It is a great science experiment for the kids!

Mix the dough:

In a large Food Storage Container mix together all the dry ingredients.

Add the water, flax mixture, oil and honey. Stir until all the flour is well incorporated. Let the dough rise for 2 hours on the counter, with a lid loosely place on top. After the two hours refrigerate the dough until well chilled. For more details on how to mix and use the dough see chapter 9, page 235 in Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. You can also find more details here.

Once the dough is well chilled reach into the bucket with wet hands and pull out 1/4 of the dough.

Dip your hands in more water to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands as you work.

You want to press, squeeze and gently pull the dough into the shape of a baguette. This dough has no stretch to it, so you can’t pull it too hard or it will rip apart. The good news is that you can always just press it back together.

If the dough is too soft to form in your hands then just place it on a thin sheet of parchment and form the loaf with wet hands right on the paper. Try to handle it gently so as not to compress all of the air bubbles out of the dough.

brush with water and then loosely drape with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for 40 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees for 30 minutes with a Baking Stone on the center rack and a Broiler Pan on the bottom rack.

Sprinkle with seeds (I used the mixture from HBin5 on page 54).

Place the baguettes, on the parchment, into a Baguette Pan. This way the bread keeps its lovely shape and you can get more into your oven at one time.

Using a sharp Serrated Bread Knife slash the baguettes at a diagonal three times 1/4-inch deep down the loaf.

Place the baguette pan onto the preheated stone, add 1 cup of hot water to the broiler pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Allow the bread to cool on a wire rack and then enjoy!

Leave a comment below and we will pick 10 random winners next week for the King Arthur Gluten-Free Flours! *Only residents of the USA are elegible for the contest.

Baking class opportunity: There’s still room in Jeff’s bread class at Chef’s Gallery in Stillwater MN, this Saturday June 5, from 2:00 to 5:00pm.  Call 651-351-1144 to register.  Jeff will be focusing on flatbreads and pizza that can be done on the outdoor gas grill (the demo will be on an indoor vented gas grill).

It’s basically summer, even here in Minnesota, and I’m baking loaves outside on the grill already.  Last summer, we did a lot of grilled flatbreads (and there’ll be more to come), but a few days ago I baked a peasant loaf in a closed cast iron pot, right on the gas grill.  We’ve had lots to say about baking in a closed vessel, which works great indoors.  Well, it works great outdoors too.  Use any lean dough you like; try our regular white recipe, from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, or the whole-grain version, from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  After you view the video, come see the finished product (picture at the end of this post).

In the video above, I’m not entirely clear on baking times.  You bake with the lid on the pot for the first two-thirds of baking, then remove it so the top crust can complete its browning for the last third of baking.  If the loaf takes 30 minutes, then the first 20 are covered.  Play with your grill to get the temperature stabilized around the level called for in our recipe (you need a grill with a thermometer), but be aware that you may need a lower temp than what’s called for– in some gas grills the bottom will scorch at full temp.

If you don’t have a cast-iron pot, you can use any oven-proof lidded vessel, including a cloche, but simple inexpensive things work as well.  For cast-iron, you can use an enameled pot as in this post, or simple un-enameled black cast-iron.

If you do go for the Le Creuset enameled cast-iron pans (here’s a two-quart version on Amazon), they’re terrific, but you might need to replace the standard composite lid-knob with this metal one for high-heat baking, on the grill or otherwise.  The composite degrades at temperatures above 375F or so, though some seem to say otherwise in the product literature.  Check with the company if you’re in doubt.

If you use the 1-quart pan, that’s about exactly right for a 1-pound loaf, and will contain sideways spread.  But… larger pans also work beautifully– the pan will be larger than the loaf and won’t contain sideways spread.  You’ll see what I mean…

But here’s what the final result looks like (yes I’ve switched pots on you here, this is from a different baking session–the slashing on this loaf was parallel cuts rather than the cross I did in the video):

Stay in touch with us on:

… our YouTube Channel: www.YouTube.com/user/BreadIn5

Twitter: www.Twitter.com/ArtisanBreadIn5

… or on Facebook (click here)

When we talk with people with a loaf-center that won’t bake through, it’s almost always one of these explanations:

1. The oven temperature is off: Usually it’s running too hot, and the outside looks brown before the center is baked through.  But a low oven temperature can fool you too– you think you’ve baked long enough, but it’s actually running 50 degrees too cool.  Home ovens can be off by 50 to 75 degrees F, so check with an inexpensive oven thermometer like this one:  http://bit.ly/czmco2
2. Inadequate pre-heat: This is a problem mostly for really large ovens, like some of the professional-line models out there that are now being marketed for home use.  You may need up to an hour of pre-heating with large ovens.
3. Mistakenly using bleached flour: Where white flour is called for, our recipes use unbleached, not bleached flour.  If you use bleached, it doesn’t absorb enough water and the dough will be too wet, resulting in a center that doesn’t bake through.  Check the label carefully.
4. Measuring flour volume incorrectly: The most common mistake is that someone isn’t measuring the way we describe in our books.  We use the standard scoop-and-sweep method.  See our video on this for proper technique.  Do not spoon the flour into the measuring cup before sweeping– if you do, the cup will be too-lightly filled, and the dough will be too wet, leaving you with a center that won’t bake through.  Consider weighing flour if you want to get away from the uncertainty of volume measurement, see the post…

If you’re really struggling with underbaking, you can try an instant-read thermometer.  For lean breads (no eggs), the temperature at the center of the loaf should be 205 to 210 degrees F (96 to 99 degrees Celsius).  For egg-enriched doughs, the temperature should be about 185 degrees F (85 degrees Celsius).

One other thing– thanks for a great review of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day on Mary Hunt’s EverydayCheapskate.com, click to view.

Return to FAQs page

After mixing the dough, our recipes only require two hours at room temperature for their initial rise (assuming you’ve used lukewarm water); then the container goes into the refrigerator where it can be stored for up to two weeks (depending on the recipe).  Occasionally, we’ll forget about a batch and leave it out overnight.  We’ve found that this has little effect on the final result, maybe just shortens the batch life by a day or two.

So don’t throw out that good dough if you forget about it overnight!

Return to FAQs page