Give Us This Day

I've been learning how to bake Artisan bread - see January 6 post - from a great book I gave Martha for Christmas called The New Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, by an appealing couple of bakers, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  Jeff, a doctor, approached traditional bread baking from a scientific perspective, and learned that you can bake bread in a much shorter amount of time using a wet dough method.  He teamed up with a friend (Zoe) who was a Culinary Institute graduate, to write the book.

I invested in a baking stone and a bread peel.  But my first attempt produced a little loaf with good flavor but not much rise - it was supposed to be a big, rounded "boule" as depicted on the cover of the book, but it turned out to be a flat boule, as if someone had pricked it with a pin:

Not only that,. the dough was so thin and sticky that I could barely work it.  It literally slipped through my fingers.  A little investigation on the website led me to change the kind of flour, from light and fluffy White Lily (great for southern biscuits no doubt) to Gold Medal, the brand recommended in the book, which apparently has a different protein amount and is much denser.  My third attempt was perfect.  Here it came, straight from the oven, high and magnificent:

And delicious!

Four hard miles yesterday afternoon with Pat and Kelder, fueled by the power of Artisan bread!  Every runner needs good carbs.