What's Cooking with Linda: Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes A Day

OK, Update On A New "Try This"

"Artisan Bread In % Minutes A Day" book by Jeff Hertzberg, MD and Zoe Francois (Amazon for about $17.00)

The basic bread is as follows and keeps in the fridg for up to 2 weeks and you make small loves up to 4 one pound loves from this much

3 C. Warm water

1.5 TBSP yeast

1.5 TBSP kosher salt or course salt of some kind. (Table salt is too fine and you will need to reduce the amount if you use table salt)

6.5 C. all purpose flour

Mix it all up in a 6 cup lidded container. If you are using a Rubbermaid thing, you have to remember not to seal it. Let this raise on the counter at room temp for about 4 hours or as long as over night. It will raise and then kind of flatten off. This is when you put it in the fridg. This is a wet dough and you don't kneed it at all. you can mix it with a spoon right in the container.

This is what I tried today. The authors told me that I could make this on the grill in an enameled cast iron 2 quart Dutch oven if I did it right. I asked it I could use a crockery Dutch oven, sure. So, from Wal_Mart I picked up a 2.5 quart oval lidded casserole or Dutch oven. The box said that it was oven proof to 500F. It was like $25.00. I figured that if this works then maybe I would consider going the cost of the enameled cast iron thing. If you go this route straight away remember that the knob on the lid has to be something over safe to the high heat of 450F.

I fired the gas Weber to 450F for 20 minutes with the following in place.

* Try to do this on INDIRECT HEAT. I found to get that hot, I had to leave the two outside burners on high as they would go and the center on as low as it will go until it achieves temp

* While the grill is heating remember that the rest of this has got to be in there heating as well.

1 Large steel pizza pan, I covered mine with foil

2 11 or 12 inch baking stone

3 My pot with the cover on it (empty) for the heat up

The dough rests for 40 minutes before baking. Instead of resting my dough on the peel on corn meal, I rested it for the last 20 minutes on parchment paper folded to act as a bed for the loaf. I kind of made mine wide enough to cover the pot side to side in the oval pot.

When the 40 minute rest is up:

* Open the grill

* Remove the cover on the pot

* Pick up the rested dough on it parchment paper sling and place it in the pot with the paper ends hanging over.

* Place the pot lid back on the pot making it as tight as you can

Bake it like this at 450F (I had to turn that center burner off entirely) for 30 minutes. Remove the pot from the stack and set aside removing the lid. Your bread should be crusty and tend but not as crusty as it would have been had you done it per directions in the oven. The parchment paper will be really toasted on the part that isn't inside the pot and will crumble when you touch it. I used my grill tongs to get a hold of the part that was still sold and lifted one end up and slid my silicon hot pad under it. Careful that pot is really hot. I set it on the cutting board on the table. and used the grill flipper to remove it from the parchment paper.

Next I want to try it in the camp Dutch oven.

Those that have the book, when you do this in the oven you have a pan with a cup of water in it that provide moisture when it bakes. Doing it this way, the dough provides the moisture itself in the enclosed pot.