Adventures with Artisan Bread

Nope, it's not pretty...

For Christmas last year my parents got me this awesome book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day. (Link to book on Amazon.com) It's basic theory is that you don't have to spend hours kneading dough, building bread ovens, and worrying about yeast rising to make bread.  Instead, the book walks you through a process of making a big batch of dough--no kneading required--which gets an initial rise on a countertop and then sits in your fridge for 2 weeks awaiting many possibilities.  You then can just pull out portions of this master dough to make bread as needed for the next few weeks.  It's versatile, applicable to anything from pizza dough to naan to cinnamon rolls, and much more.  And it's incredibly easy, especially for those who might be intimidated by working with yeast or dough.

What I really love about this book, much like the "No Knead Bread" recipe that enamored the blogosphere a year or so back or the original intent of the BreadMaker, is that it attempts to demystify the bread-making process for regular people like moi.  It brings the bread to the people, and for that I love it.  I've cooked my way through a good portion of the recipes, although I have a long way to go--hence the new "breadmaking" label on this post.  I'm going to expand my bread horizons beyond the 5 or so standbys that I can't quite move past without some encouragement.

Almost ready for the oven

Which is not to say that it's perfect.  I don't generally like the dough for pizza dough--it's wet and hard to work with--hence the rolling pin in the photo above.  This dough will tear if you try to hand-stretch it, probably due to low gluten from the lack-of-kneading.  Plus, the older it is the more "sour" the flavor is (like sourdough bread, a flavor I love--just not in pizza crust).  Plus, a really old batch of dough loses a lot of rise--you'll be fine making a flatbread from a 2-week-old batch, but a baguette probably is going to be on the flat and dense side.

That said, it's a lot easier than my favorite pizza doughs, which all require at least an hour rise (and needs an overnight cold rise...but it's worth it).  Since I had a batch of dough in the fridge that I started on Monday (specifically to make na'an with when I get to my Spicy Lentil Soup recipe--the naan will change you life.  For reals), I decided to forgo the better doughs and just grab a hunk from the bowl in the fridge.  I did have the better part of a log of fresh mozzerella that was languishing uneaten, along with some sad, old ears of corn, so it was thrifty--those would have gone to waste without pizza!  Or something like that.

This is just a simple, easy non-recipe--BBQ Veggie Pizza. Instead of just chicken and red onions, I wanted to get a little more creative.  Home-grown (father-in-law) corn, black beans, and poblano peppers seemed about right--so much so that I left off the chicken entirely. Stretch out the dough, top with BBQ sauce (one that doesn't have high-fructose corn syrup as the first ingredient, like many do, if possible), then cheese, then veg, then a bit more cheese.  Bake it on a pizza stone at about 450, let it cool a bit and then devour.  Like we did, mostly standing up in the kitchen and trying not to get sauce on our faces.