Reviewing the Master Recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Artisan Bread | Breadin5

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.

For the Master Recipe…

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Strawberry Rhubarb Streusel Coffeecake for Mother’s Day

Strawberry Rhubarb Streusel Coffeecake

It’s Mother’s Day this weekend (you remembered, right?) 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 our 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. We also have a coffeecake in Blueberry if that is more your jam (pun intended).

Other Bread in 5 news: Zoe did a Instagram live with our no-knead brioche, and made cinnamon rolls! You can watch her here shape the buns and cook them (and some other treats) in the slow cooker. We also have a recipe for Crock Pot Cinnamon Rolls if you’d rather take that route for Mother’s Day.

We have updated our Sourdough Starter post, with more helpful tips and troubleshooting suggestions. We also have a FAQ page we are constantly updating if you are having issues with your bread baking.

Strawberry Rhubarb Streusel Coffeecake

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

1 pound (grapefruit-size portion) Brioche dough, from New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

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.

Serve the cake warm or at room temperature.

Soft Pretzels – (How-to Video on Shaping the Dough)

Homemade Soft Pretzels Recipe | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

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.

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Ham and Cheese Brioche Sandwiches

Ham and Cheese Brioche Sandwiches | Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

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.

Ham and Cheese Brioche Sandwiches | Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

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How & When to Swap Bread Flour for All-Purpose in Mini-Wreath Pain d’Epis

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

Chicken and Donuts

I’ve recently become obsessed with Gary Cooper – not the Gary 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.

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Pretzel Rolls

Pretzel Rolls | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

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!)

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Raisin Walnut Bread

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

We addRaisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Raisin Walnut Bread Ingredients | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Raisin Walnut Bread

3 cups lukewarm water

1 tablespoon instant or active dry yeast

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 cup whole wheat flour

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (if you use King Arthur or other high protein flours, you may need to add up to a 1/4 cup more water)

1 cup raisins

1 cup walnuts

2 teaspoons cinnamon

In a 6-Quart Round Storage Container add the water, yeast, salt, flours

Adding raisins to bread dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

raisins

A bowl of raisins and walnuts | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

walnuts and cinnamon.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Mix with a Danish Dough Whisk, a wooden spoon or a stand mixer.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Let the dough rise for 2 hours and then you can use it right away or it can be stored for about 7 days.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Pull out a 2-pound piece of dough, about half the dough in the bucket.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Quickly shape it into a smooth oval.

Floured ceramic bread pan | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Generously grease and flour the base of the bread baker.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Place the dough into Bread Loaf Baker.

Bread Dough Baker | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

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.

Raisin Walnut Bread Dough Rising | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Uncover the loaf and use a Pastry Brush to paint with water.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

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

Raisin Walnut Bread Turned Out of a Bread Pan | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Turn the loaf out of the pan after 5 minutes and then let cool completely.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Breadin5 17

After you’ve enjoyed some of your bread you can slip it back into the baker to store it on the counter.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

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.

Raisin Walnut Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

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.

Thanks EveryDayCheapskate.com: great review of “New Artisan” and, an Artisan Baker’s Gift Basket…

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…”

Mary Hunt, EveryDayCheapskate.com

Thanks Mary!

Epicurious names “The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” as one of the greatest cookbooks of all time

NewArtisan is 1 of greatest

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.”

For more, click on Epicurious.com, in “The Hunt for the Greatest Cookbooks of All Time”