5-Minutes-A-Day Bread

We finally remembered to take pictures while making this bread while simultaniously making it correctly! This recipe is awesome and should be a staple for any one who is a fan of bread and wants to feed themselves for cheap. It's name is perhaps deceptive - you can't actually have bread in just 5 minutes, but after the original mixing and rising you keep the dough in the fridge, and it only takes 5 minutes of actually handling total each day to form the loaves and then stick them in the oven once it's heated up. It is very comforting to know the dough is waiting for you on days when you have no good ideas for dinner.

5-Minutes-A-Day Bread
makes enough dough for about 5 small loaves

3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tbs yeast
1 1/2 tbs salt
6 1/2 cups flour - white unbleached, or bre

Stir the salt and yeast into the water in a large bowl. Add the flour about 1 cup at a time, mixing it in with you hands, a wooden spoon, or a food processor with a paddle attachment. Once it is homogenous, stop stirring - do not knead the dough. Loosely cover the dough and allow it to rise for about 2 hours, or until it starts to collapse - longer is ok, but less time is not. Stick the dough in the fridge (you can cover more tightly at this point). After 3 hours, you're ready to make your first loaf. The dough can be kept in the fridge for up to two weeks - the longer it sits, the more of a complex, sour-dough-ish taste it will get.

When you're ready to make your loaf, flour your hands and a wood/plastic surface very well. Reach into your dough bowl, grab an approximately grapefruit-sized hunk (mine often end up closer to orange-sized because I have little hands) and cut it away from the rest of the dough with a serrated knife. Put this hunk of dough down on the floured surface and flour your hands and the dough - the next step will be painful if everything isn't absolutely covered in flour to prevent sticking. During this step, the idea is to stretch the surface of the dough and make it into a nice, round shape. To do this, hold the hunk of dough in your hands and use your thumbs to gently pull two opposite sides of the dough away from each other and then fold them down under the bottom of the dough. Turn the dough slightly and repeat this several times - you want to end up with a smooth, rounded top surface and a bottom that is made up of a bunch of tucks. If you can't get it right, try searching for "5 minutes a day bread" on google video and watch a pro do it.

After that, just let your dough sit, uncovered ,for about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, stick a baking stone (or a baking sheet if you don't have one) in the oven and crank it up to 450, at least 20 minutes before you're reading to bake. Put a metal baking dish on a lower rack in the oven. Cut a 1/4" deep slice into the top of the bread, or in a fancy pattern, before baking. Use a spatula or whatever you've got to slide your dough onto the stone/sheet and then immediately pour a glass of water into the lower baking dish and then shut the oven door right away - this traps in steam, which will help develop the bread's crust. Bake it for about 30 minutes, or until it's nice and browned. Let it cool a bit before serving, or it will be all soft and gushy and tongue-burny on the inside.