When they say "Five Minutes a Day" they really mean it. Boy was this dough easy to make. I was laying in bed with my hubby the other night and got the bug to dig into this book (finally!)
Step #1 - Run downstairs
Step #2 - Throw flour, water, yeast and salt in the KitchenAid and mix
About 3 minutes later I had my dough!!
Step #3 - Cover in loose plastic wrap, put in fridge *Bonus* you can keep it in whatever container you mixed it in, so 1 less dish to clean
Step #4 - Skip back upstairs and get back in bed
The next day my dough had risen a bit, but not as much as I had imagined it would. To make the "Boule" (literally "Ball" in French) you pull out a grapefruit sized chunk of dough from your batch (the one you made in 3 minutes flat) with lightly floured hands, round it out by pulling the edges under to form a taught top. Place on a pizza peel (or wood cutting board if you don't have one of those) lightly sprinkled with cornmeal. Let rise for 40 minutes while you're cooking dinner or cleaning, or doing whatever needs doing.
Slice the top so the boule will have those nice markings you see on bakery bread, pop onto a pizza stone that's been pre-heated while the oven was pre-heating. Pour a cup of water onto a cookie sheet placed on the lower rack of the oven and close the door quickly! The water helps to make a steamy environment for the baking boule.
The Boule is the most basic bread recipe in the book, the one readers are to "become familiar with" before moving on to any of the other recipes. I think "becoming familiar" entails making it once. It was that easy.
What do you think? I think I need some photography lessons :)
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