Shopping for Bread-Bakers

People always ask us about our favorite bread-baking tools, so here are some of them, with links to Amazon:

Thermometer

A thermometer: you really can’t get a good crust until you know your oven’s temp. They’re cheap and effective.

Baking Stone

Baking stone: For a great, crisp, crust, you really need one, and this 1/2-inch thick Old Stone brand has been very durable for us. There are other stone/iron options, see our post on that. Read More

Pumpkin Swirl Bread

Pumpkin Swirl Bread | Breadin5

Pumpkin pie and brioche are two of my all time favorites, so why not combine the two. The result is a bread rich with butter, eggs and spiced pumpkin puree. Spreading the pumpkin onto the brioche dough and rolling it into a log creates the swirl pattern when you cut it. The bread is gorgeous and tasty, perfect for Thanksgiving or just a fall morning with a cup of coffee.

Next week is the official release of our book The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Woot! To celebrate we are doing a giveaway, before the book even hits the stands. It is a small token of our appreciation for all your help in creating this new edition. We’ve incorporated what we’ve learned from your comments, your questions and your suggestions. Please leave us a comment below about your favorite experience baking bread or what you are most eager to try. We will give away 5 copies of the new book to randomly picked winners next week.* Thank you! Our usual contest rules apply (click here for rules); you need to respond within 24 hours of notification or we have to pick someone else. CONTEST CLOSED, WINNERS CHOSEN AND NOTIFIED 10/22/13.

To make the Pumpkin Swirl Bread:

Pumpkin Swirl Bread | Breadin5 Read More

Bruschetta with Fig Compote

Bruschetta with Fig Compote | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

And while most of home-baked bread gets eaten gladly, there are times when the bread box is filled with loaves that have gone stale. You can be creative with ‘old’ bread; french toast always works, and bread pudding, and bruschetta. While I love a traditional take on bruschetta, I decided to change things up a bit by making something with fall flavors; so I took off the tomatoes and added figs.

Figs are in season just a little longer, and my fridge has been filled with them for weeks now. I tend to snatch them up and then cook them down, making a compote that can be used in a variety of ways. The sweetness of this compote combined with the prosciutto and blue cheese makes for such a flavorful bite. And, if the compote is made ahead of time, this can be put together in mere minutes, making this a simple and delicious afternoon lunch.

Read More

Soft Puerto Rican Sweet Buns (Mallorca)

mallorca

For spring break my family visited Puerto Rico. It took me less than 24 hours to find myself an amazing local bakery with all kinds of tasty pastries and breads to try. My favorites, which I managed to sample several times during our stay, were the Quesitos and Mallorca buns. The buns are a sweet enriched dough that is wound up into a snail shell shape and dusted with a thick coating of powdered sugar. We ate them plain with coffee or split open, stuffed with eggs and bacon, as a breakfast sandwich. When I got back home, I used our brioche dough to recreate the sweet buns and they are delicious and easy to make.  Read More

5-Minute Easter Bread – Tsoureki

Tsoureki Easter Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

This beautiful Tsoureki loaf is the traditional bread of Easter in Greece and many other Christian countries. It is an enriched dough that is twisted around brightly dyed eggs. The bread is often braided with three strands to represent the holy trinity, formed into a circle as a reference to life and the eggs are dyed red as a symbol of Christ’s blood. The dough is lightly sweet, flavored with orange zest and a traditional Middle Eastern spice called Mahlepi, which is made from ground cherry pits. The spice can be found in Middle Eastern or Greek markets. If you don’t have the spice, you can make the dough with ground Anise seed or even Cardamom. Read More

TV spot on Pittsburgh’s CBS affiliate, making “Pain du Football” for Super Bowl Sunday (and eating raw bread dough with host Jon Burnett!)

on-kdka-pittsburgh.jpgIn 2009 I was in Pittsburgh just before SuperBowl (go Steelers!) and mixed up a batch of Master Recipe dough with host Jon Burnett on KDKA-TV Channel 2 (the CBS affiliate).  Pittsburgh was awash in Steelers mania, and I couldn’t resist cutting a loaf of Pain d’Epi (wheat stalk bread) but calling it Pain du Football (page 75 in the book).  I’m bringing this bread to a Super Bowl party because each individual roll is shaped like a football– well, something like a football.  Perfect for dipping into chili in front of the game.  Jon was disappointed that my baked bread was a bit stale (I’d had to bake it in Minneapolis and it was two days stale!) so he insisted on eating the RAW bread dough instead.  Click here or on the video screen above to view the TV segment, this was great fun.

Have a look at this post on Pain d’Epi (wheat stalk bread) for some nice shots of the cutting technique.  Remember to cut at a very shallow angle with long-bladed shears, almost all the way through the baguette you form.

Note: BreadIn5.com is reader supported. When you buy through links on the site, BreadIn5 LLC earns commissions.

Ham and Cheese Pull-Apart Bread

Ham and Cheese Pull-Apart Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Here is a fun, easy way to pack lunch right into your loaf of bread. No, I don’t mean the typical sandwich our kids are sick to death of, I mean ham and cheese (or whatever you are in the mood for) is folded into the dough and baked as a loaf: pull-apart bread! Each slice is a sandwich. In order to get the layers to keep their shape, I made the dough with bread flour, which boosts the amount of gluten and gives the loaf a little more structure. To make it a touch healthier (I’m constantly sneaking whole grains where kids will never see them) I also used whole wheat flour. This technique would work equally well with many other doughs from our books.

Sliced Ham and Cheese Pull-Apart Bread | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

As the name suggests you can just pull sections of the loaf apart, but I sliced into this one to show you how the ham and cheese ends up woven through the bread.

Read More