Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Five Minute Bread in a Bread Pan--Does it Work?

After reading Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day I came to the conclusion that it’s just bread dough and should be able to rise in a regular bread pan just like the old fashion kneaded bread does. So I did an experiment with one of my mini bread pans to see if it does indeed work like regular kneaded bread. And what do you know? It works!

I took out a smaller amount of dough than for a normal loaf of Artisan Bread and pulled it under and shaped it into a longer loaf than normal. It fit right into the pan (I oiled the sides) and I set it on top of the oven for the rising time but let it go a little long than normal. At 40 minutes it didn’t raise up in the pan very much so I let it sit a while longer.

That while longer was almost an hour and a half too long. I got side tracked doing something else and forgot about it (always the reason to set a timer) and when I came back in the house I remembered the bread.

Looking at it the dough, it was way over the top of the bread pan and starting to fall. So it was left a little too long. In all it was left to rise for about 2 hours and that seems to be a bit too much. But I put it in the oven anyway and that was an extra 20 minutes waiting for the oven to preheat. So it was left to rise 2 hours and 20 minutes. But this time it was starting to fall having reached it peak.

I slide it into the oven very carefully so as not to cause it to fall any more. Baked it for 22 minutes and low and behold it came out looking like a mini loaf of bread. I was amazed it didn’t fall flat as does most of my bread when I forget about it.

As you can see from the picture, it came out looking and smelling great. I also forgot to put the water in so the crust was extra crunchy but a little butter on the top helped with that. So what did I learn...

Not to forget I have bread rising, for one. For another Artisan Bread in Five Minutes can be baked in a bread pan like kneaded bread and, I think the most important, the dough has a lot of latitude without ruining it or having it fall flat. It has the same great taste and other than the little hanging over the side of the pan, it’s like a mini loaf of bread.

So there you have it, you can bake Artisan Bread in Five Minutes in a bread pan, you can forget about it, although it’s not recommended, and it still tastes the same. Give it a try!