Artisan Bread on a Sunday Afternoon

Recently, I check a book out from the library titled "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day." I had seen it mentioned on other sites and I was curious if it was really possibly. Well, the idea is that you make a large bath of dough and, then, store it for later use. I decided to try it.

I mixed up a half batch (2 loaves) on Sunday morning to eat with dinner that night. Followed the instructions and left it in the fridge while we went of to Church. Now, comes the tricky part, I had a meeting directly following Church so I left my husband in charge of the bread. He was nervous, but we read through the book together and HE DID IT! The bread turned out great. The only thing I forgot to mention to him was to make one, not two loaves.

{Artisan Bread}

makes 4 loaves

3 C warm water
1 1/2 T yeast
1 1/2 T kosher salt
6 1/2 C flour

Mix water, yeast, and salt together. Add in flour. DO NOT knead the dough. Cover and let rise until the top starts to cave back in (about 2 hours). Place into the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

When ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator. Cut off a grapefruit-sized ball of dough. Gently shape the dough by pulling the dough around to the bottom, forming a smooth ball. Place on a pizza peal dusted with cornmeal. Let rest for 40 minutes.

20 minutes prior to baking, preheat the oven and pizza stone to 450 degrees. Place a broiler pan below the stone while preheating. After 20 minutes of preheating the oven is ready. Dust the top of the dough with cornmeal and slash the top. Move the dough to the stone, and quickly pour 1 C water into the broiler pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

{Variations}
Herbed: 1 tsp thyme and 1/2 tsp rosemary
Baguette: Form the smooth ball, then, gently stretch to shape baguette. Brush the top with water and slash it. Bake for 25 minutes.