Artisian Bread in 5 minutes a day!

I am a big fan of Mary Hunt's "Everyday Cheapskate" email. It's an email that comes every weekday to my inbox, and I love it. It's FREE, which is why I subscribe!

She mentioned a BYOB challenge she was taking. Bake Your Own Bread. She has committed to try it for a year, and I thought I'd join too. I wasn't convinced of joining until I tried the simple and fantastic recipe she had shared. It's the easiest bread recipe I've tried, and goodness, it's tasty too! The recipe came from the book, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. The idea is to make an Artisan style bread, just like this beauty: (insert attached picture)

However, you're not limited to that. I made a regular loaf in your typical loaf pan the first time. To get the recipe, go here

Honestly, I was hooked after the first loaf of bread I made. But I wasn't about to post it until I had at least 3-4 successful batches. And that, my friends, I had! After the first loaf turned out so good, we made cinnamon rolls for breakfast the next day. I made a dozen for my young family of 4. After 5 minutes, they were all gone. That night, my family begged for cinnamon rolls for dessert. How could I not? :-) Then for the 4th and final from the first batch of dough, I made breadsticks. Heaven!

So, here's the deal. You use FOUR simple ingredients: water, yeast, salt and flour. The recipe does call for coarse salt, which I didn't have. I would recommend that if you only have table salt, like I did, that you lower the amount of salt you add by about half or so. My first loaf was a bit salty. Anyway, you mix those ingredients together (no kneading), let it rise for a couple of hours, and then stick it in the fridge. No need to punch it down or anything. It will keep in the fridge for up to 14 days. Whenever you want fresh bread (ANY kind!), pull some dough out of your big batch (the batch is said to make 4 loafs) and shape how you want (roll it flat for bread sticks, prepare as cinnamon rolls, shape into dinner rolls, whatever) and then let it raise for 40 minutes. Then bake it! That's it! I baked my loaf at 385 for 30 minutes, my sweet rolls for 20 minutes, and my breadsticks for 20 minutes. I've read to bake it at 450 degrees, but I'd already tried the 385 and liked it just fine, so I'll let you choose what you do on that!

Evelyn is a student and mom of two cute kids. She runs a blog on how to live a frugal and debt free lifestyle called DEDEland- enjoy it today!