Adventures with Artisan Bread

I was not homeschooled. But with the amount of time I’ve spent baking my own bread over the years, it may seem like I was. No, instead I grew up with my mom’s countertop bread machine that was a fad of the ‘90s. I’m sure there are still people that use them, but once I learned how to bake bread the old-fashioned way, there was no going back to that square loaf with the hole in the bottom. (If you know, you know.) I don’t remember the first loaf of bread I baked on my own. I’m sure it was probably in that old bread machine. I do remember baking bread in a loaf pan with my best friend the summer before I moved away from Oklahoma for the first time.

2012 - one loaf of bread in OK before I left on my 10 year adventure!

It took me a while to feel inspired enough to bake bread for myself vs. adding it to my grocery list. However, once I made it to my second summer at camp in Colorado, I was tired of camp food and wanted to branch out. In the summer of 2016, I shared Elk Run, the house shared during the off-season among the interns and gap-year students who also worked at camp, with one other person. This meant more space for working in the kitchen. This summer was also when I found the original Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. This book set me off on a love of bread baking.

I started with the “Master Recipe” and then moved on to rye bread which is a favorite. (Here are some Bread in 5 rye tips. My rye bread experiences will be shared later.) After two weeks with this book checked out from the library, I knew it was worth owning, and I found a copy for myself that fall. Bread in 5 went with me to Arkansas, Connecticut (where I was living when I picked up The New Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day from Powell’s Books in Portland at FoodCorps’ National Orientation), and Montana (where I was gifted Holiday and Celebration Bread in Five Minutes a Day). I made several recipes from the original book at culinary school when we were able to choose our own recipes, and I tried what sounded good through the years. In 2018, the summer I turned 30 I decided to set a goal of making every recipe in the book. This was a concerted effort simply by the fact that my goal was added to my “30 in 30” list.

You may be wondering what a “30 in 30” list is. Well, I thought it was a thing until I just Googled 30 in 30, and I found a football documentary called 30 for 30 and a 30-30 fitness challenge, neither of which were what I had in mind. Maybe I made up my “30 in 30” list, but the idea came to me somehow. I decided to make a goal for myself to complete 30 things in my 30th year. (However, I recently found out from Kelly and Mark that one’s birthday is actually at the end of the year they’re celebrating. So I was really trying to carry out 30 things into my 31st year. This changes everything!) Most of the things on my list weren’t one-and-done types of things; they were more habits I was trying to form. For example, my list included such items as “Call Grandma at least once a month,” “Make 2 recipes from my magazine [I was subscribed to and paying for] during the respective month(s),” “Take more pictures,” “Do more free things,” “Journal at least monthly,” and “Make time during school and work to exercise at least 30 minutes three days a week.” I also had on the list “Make every recipe I haven’t tried in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.”

Olive Fougasse, summer 2018

While I was successful in some things, both crossing off the list and forming habits, my 31st birthday came sooner than I was ready, and there were still some items on my list to complete. So, I rolled the ones I wanted to continue and still finish onto a “31 in 31” list. In my 31st year, I was living in Connecticut serving with FoodCorps, and I added a few new items to the list. During the year I was able to cross off “Visit at least four state or national parks,” “Go to Boston and New York City at least once,” “Go kayaking in the ocean/ harbor/ bay,” and “Tour/ explore Yale campus.” I was also able to cross off visiting Vermont but not New Jersey. I just drove through it twice without stopping. All of those are stories for another time. I finished the year with “Make every recipe I haven’t tried in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” still on the list. I was slowly working my way through, but I didn’t finish. I shared recipes with my roommate, a Ph.D. researcher at Yale who shared my love of baking, and I would take pictures of recipes I wanted to make for my parents over my Christmas vacation so I didn’t have to pack the book. I still had more recipes to go, though.

In 2019 I moved to Montana to serve a second term with Foodcorps, and my goal of finishing the Bread in 5 recipes moved onto a “32 in 32” list. Since I’m a fan of crossing items off a list, in April 2018 I decided to type all of the recipe titles onto a Word document so I could cross off recipes as I went, and I would know how many I had left. Even though I was past my original deadline, I was determined that 32 would be the year! It didn’t hurt that Covid happened so I had more time to bake, or that I was living with a family, so I had ready taste testers and didn’t have to eat everything myself. My “32 in 32” list had some new items for my new location. I was able to visit five state or national parks. I went skiing, and I visited Wyoming a few times. However, I never made it to Idaho, and Covid prevented me from getting my passport and making the trip to Canada. Covid wasn’t the only thing that slowed goals and the supply chain. Growing seasons slowed my progress, too.

My last recipe to make from Bread in 5 was Kumquat Champagne Confit.

I had never made a confit, which, according to Serious Eats, is a type of “preservation [that] takes place by slowly cooking food in a liquid that is inhospitable to bacterial growth.” I had also never tasted (or tried to find) a kumquat. My Montana family knew I was working my way through the book and knew of my quest for kumquats.

In the spring of 2020, I had (masked, of course) searched in person or called 6 grocery stores in Bozeman and Livingston. Kumquats were nowhere to be found. But for my 33rd birthday, I had hope! My MT family gifted me with an orange golf ball as a stand-in for 30 kumquats that were supposedly on their way. They ordered the hard-to-find fruit from a local, small grocery store that promised they would come in. Even after two follow-up calls checking on their status, they never came. The store pre-emptively made the promise too late in the season. So, while I would have finished my Bread in 5 recipe goals that summer, kumquat season was over, and I had more waiting to do.

Spring came around again, and while there was still snow on the ground in Montana, it was kumquat season in the southern states! (In the US they’re commonly grown in Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and California.) In April 2021 another member of my Montana family followed through to procure the illusive kumquats. I was finally able to make the confit, drink some champagne, and bake a celebratory cake! The confit was similar to marmalade, so I thought the best way to feature it was as a filling for a Victoria Sponge. I had additional kumquats and decided to decorate the top with slices of the little orange fruit. The cake and the kumquat confit were a definite hit. (See the inside of the cake here.) I made 15 cakes for my Montana family while I was there over three years, and this one was one of the favorites!

Victoria Sponge Cake topped with kumquats and filled with kumquat champagne confit

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day covers a wide range of recipes instead of just bread. There are soups, sandwiches, salads, and spreads. This is one of the reasons I like The Harvest Baker so much, too. There is a variety of foods that can be eaten for any meal of the day. This includes muffins and scones, sweet and savory pies, pizzas, one-dish main entrées, cakes, and bread. My go-to recipes I come back to in the original Bread in 5 book over and over again are the tried-and-true bread recipes. This includes rye bread, oat bread, and peasant bread.

Ken’s Shaker Fresh Herb Bread with Walnuts reminded me of some of the recipes in The New Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. There are several with nuts, seeds, and fresh herbs. I couldn’t talk about The New Healthy Bread in 5 without talking about the original book and my multi-year quest. I used fresh oregano and thyme to make the dough that I shaped into a batard loaf using my oblong banneton and a sandwich loaf that was baked in a loaf pan. It makes great sandwich bread and toast with a golden brown crust covered with toasted sesame seeds. I have shared the recipe below so you can try it for yourself! No strings to bake-all-the-recipes-in-the-book attached!

Shaker Fresh Herb Bread with Walnuts

Shaker Fresh Herb Bread with Walnuts

Yield: Two 8½- by 4½” loaves

Ingredients:

• Butter for the pan

• 2¼ cups hot milk

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• 2½ teaspoons salt

• ¼ cup light olive oil, plus a little for the bowl

• ⅓ cup lukewarm water (105 to 110℉)

• 1 packet (¼ ounce) active dry yeast

• 1 egg yolk

• 6¼ - 6¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

• 1 cup chopped walnuts

• ⅓ - ½ cup chopped fresh herbs

• 1 teaspoon celery seed

• 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk, for glaze

• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Pour the hot milk into a large bowl. Add the sugar and salt; stir to dissolve. Stir in the olive oil and set aside until the milk is lukewarm. Meanwhile, pour the water into a small bowl and sprinkle on the yeast. Stir once or twice with a fork and set aside for 5 minutes to let the yeast dissolve.

2. Stir the dissolved yeast and the egg yolk into the lukewarm milk. Add 4 cups of the flour. Beat vigorously with a wooden spoon for about 100 strokes. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Stir the walnuts, herbs, and celery seed into the dough. Stir in enough of the remaining flour, adding ¼ to ⅓ cup at a time, to make a kneadable dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface, and knead with floured hands for 8 to 10 minutes, until the dough is supple and elastic. Smear a teaspoon or two of olive oil in a large ceramic or glass bowl. Add the dough, turning it to coat the entire surface with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it aside in a warm, draft-free spot until the dough has doubled in bulk, about 1 to 1½ hours.

4. Punch the dough down and turn it out onto a floured work surface. Divide it in half and knead each half for a minute, shaping it into a ball. Let the dough rest on a lightly floured surface for 5 to 10 minutes, loosely covered with plastic wrap. Butter two 8½- by 4½-inch loaf pans. Shape the dough into loaves and place them in the pans. Cover with plastic wrap and set them aside in a warm, draft-free spot until they have almost doubled in bulk, about 40 minutes to 1 hour. When they’re almost doubled, position your oven rack so it is one setting below the middle. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

5. Remove the plastic and lightly brush the loaves with the egg glaze. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds. Bake the loaves for 45 to 50 minutes, until they’re a rich golden brown. To see if they’re done, slip one out of the pan and tap the bottom of the loaf with a finger; it should sound hollow. Remove the loaves from the pans and transfer them to a cooling rack. When the loaves are completely cool, transfer to plastic bags for storage.

The Harvest Baker (c) by Ken Haedrich, recipe excerpted with permission from Storey Publishing.