Pantry Raid day 15 - Artisan Bread

My mom had just bought this book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day the last time I visited, and I wanted to give it a try.

On this rainy Saturday, I think I can whip up a batch of home made bread. I know I've got flour in the pantry.

Tami is also a fan of the book and has made some awesome breads. Her cinnamon swirl french toast looks amazing...

The bread is not a secret recipe, it's basic bread dough with a more water to flour ratio, more like a sponge.

3 cups water
1 1/2 TBS yeast
1 1/2 TBS salt
6 1/2 cups Flour

This is the container with the water and yeast. The Swedish dough whisk is available at King Arthur and is about the awesomest thing for mixing doughs and batters. The container came from KAF also.

This is the dough before it has risen.This is the dough about 2 hours later. It more than doubled. Here a dough ball has been shaped (well, sort of) and is resting before going in the oven.

I just slashed it like a tic-tac-toe board and threw it in the oven on the pizza stone...450 degrees 30 min. For steam, I added 1 cup of water to the broiler pan in my gas oven and the pilot light went out because it had come up to temp, but I was really afraid that I had put it out with the water. Whew.

It's a little flatter than I would have liked. You're supposed to let the dough chill out in the fridge after rising, but I really wanted some now. This is only about 1/4 of the recipe (the point is that there is always dough ready in the fridge) so I'll try again with the chilled dough tomorrow.

Maybe a little too much flour on top...I wish I could post the smell.

Dipped in a little olive oil...holy cow this is good.