European Peasant Bread

This is the second “master” recipe I baked from the book “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” (recipe to be found at page 46ff). I already made the first master recipe of this book “The Boule” and used it for my bread with dry friuts for bbd #35.

I was very happy with the boule dough and it worked really well. Easy Peasy like the book promises, so I was kind of curious if the second master recipe would be similar good to work with.

I have to say I loved it! I even liked this one better than the Boule because I think the addition of rye flour and whole wheat flour (or in my case whole spelt) enriches the bread tastewise and texturewise.

I baked the pictured bread on day 5 (which means the dough was already chillaxing for 5 days in his container at the bottom of my fridge, giving my nice freshly baked rolls a very day) for our weekly Sunday Breakfast Club with Mr T and Mrs Q.

The dough really is easy peasy: throw all ingredients together in a container, mix them until well incorporated (no further kneading kneaded), let rise on kitchen counter until doubled and then off it goes into the fridge to await further use! As you can see mine was a little over-achiever as it already tried to escape and peeked out of it’s cosy home but once it was put back in place it behaved itself very nicely!

Now this bread has oven spring I tell ya! Never saw this of a free form loaf of bread (mind you my breads are all made with spelt flour!) I made before! The crumb also was nice and moistly but not too much, the crust was chewy just like I love it!

My guest approved too and ate several slices for breakfast with butter and honey or with salami …

Right now the “Broa” dough of this book (page 82) is chillaxing in my fridge waiting to be baked for bbd #36. I am curious how this one works out and if I find any differences to the one I baked with the Bread Baking Babes back in October last year!

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