Easy Homemade Bread

For a long time, I resisted baking my own bread at home. I consider myself to be a competent and good cook, but baking is not my thing. I tend to improvise a lot, and most baking requires that you be exact in your measurements. But seriously, nothing beats homemade bread. You don't know what real bread is until you make it yourself. It tastes like bread from a french bakery, only better because it just came out of the oven.

One of the gifts Steph's mom gave me for my birthday this year was this great book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day. If you want to make bread, but are intimidated by the process, then this is the book for you. I know Andrew and Chad have a copy, which they love. Jess is now so addicted to my bread that I bought her a copy as well. Spread the word and the love of bread, people!

What makes this book so great is that it teaches you how to make bread WITHOUT kneading. It is such an easy process. You allow the gluten to rest, which allows you to skip the kneading. You can make a huge batch of dough and leave it in the fridge for up to two weeks. Just cut some off the "mother" and bake it! As the dough matures, the flavor changes and develops. Right now there is a 6 quart container in our fridge filled with dough. I'm going to bake off a couple of loaves tomorrow for our weekend camping trip.

This photo is one of the first loaves I made using the master recipe from the book. Taken with my iPhone.