After yesterday's post, I had a few emails asking if I could share my bread recipe. I do love to make my own bread, but I am also quite lazy. Luckily I have discovered a very easy and quick way to make a loaf of sourdough or ciabatta without too much effort or time.
You probably know the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day which was published a few years ago and was subsequently featured on lots of blogs. The book is by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (they have a blog here.) I borrowed my Mum's copy and was pretty excited by the whole process. I just make the basic recipe as given in the front of the book, which yields a big bowl of bread dough that you can keep in the fridge for up to two weeks. From this bowl I can make two medium-sized loaves of ciabatta which we eat with soup or for lunch with cheese and salad, etc. It also makes really nice bread for breakfast- it has that chewy, slightly holey consistency.
Another way in which it it's a great recipe is that there's hardly any kneading involved, and you don't even need to wash out the bowl you use for the dough- you can just mix up another batch and it all adds to the sourdoughy goodness. I just keep a big sack of flour in my pantry and some dried yeast and sea salt, so I can make bread at any given moment. (I don't have a pizza peel like it states in the recipe- I just use an ordinary baking tray.)
When I was looking up the book to write about bread today, I discovered that the basic recipe I use is actually published online, right here. So now you can try the method yourself. I do recommend the book though, as it has heaps of amazing recipes and variations for all sorts of specialty breads (like wholewheat, baguettes, etc) made this way.
Happy bread-making and eating!
tiny happy 
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