I love bread.

Not just eating it! I love making it, too.

I started making bread over twenty years ago. I made all kinds of bread. For years I believed that there was only one way to make a yeast bread, and that way included quite a bit of kneading. Not my favorite thing. During one of those lengthy kneading sessions, I even made up a new word to describe it: tediosity

And then, around 2007 or so, I discovered Zoe Francois (with coauthor Jeff Hertzberg) and her new approach to making bread. I bought the book, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day (note: there is now a newer version of this). All you need is yeast, water, flour, and salt.

I will distill the steps to make it for you here:

Just dump all the ingredients into the bucket! Stir it up! Let it hang out for a couple of hours! Put it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it! That’s it!

I happily made bread this way for years. It was so good! People asked me to make it all the time. I gave loaves of this bread as gifts. It was wonderful. I loved and used this book more than any other cookbook I have ever had. I kind of wrecked it, which is completely unusual for me, since I was that girl in college, the one who would not defile a textbook (or any book) by using a highlighter on the pages.

And then my bread-baking sort of fell away. I was busy. The fridge was too full to wedge the bucket in. I was, um, gaining some weight.

A recent blog post I read by my friend Carmen about focaccia bread (which I can’t wait to make!) prompted me to tell her about Artisan Bread in 5. Once I started talking about it, I couldn’t wait to make it again! The planets somehow even aligned so that I had some time to do it.

I have tweaked the basic recipe over the years.
Here’s what I do: I add about a tablespoon of honey to the yeast/water mixture step. I add the salt to the flour instead of the yeast/water. I swap out anywhere from 1/2 to 1 cup of semolina for the regular white flour. Sometimes I use bread flour instead of all-purpose. I love it. Sometimes I omit using cornmeal for the peel. I put the formed loaf on a piece of parchment paper when I form it and then throw it on the pizza stone that is already heated in the oven.

Check out the photos below the sideshow.

Now get out there and bake some bread!

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The recipe has been updated since I first began making this break. I am buying the new version of the book,

The New Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

The link to the online recipe is below:

The New Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day Master Recipe