Yum Bread

I do not normally post on food at this blog, but my sister got me into the no-knead, refrigerator bread.  Indeed, dough that can be stored for up to two weeks in your frig, and quickly formed into hot bread in minutes.  The original recipe came from the book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  The directions are simple, and you can find them over at Jan CAN Cook Blog. I would include them here, but my hope is that you will get the inform from Jan and then come here for ideas on how to change up the bread for variety sake.

Generally, this bread is amazing when it is hot out of the oven with a spot of butter, but it can be a little bland after it has been out for a bit. Since I love experimenting outside of cook books, I tried a few variations on the recipe.

 I love cinnamon bread (cinnamon is AWESOMEEEEE), and so I wanted to see if I could make some with this bread recipe.  Taking a small bit of the dough from the refrigerator, about the size of a grapefruit, I first lightly worked in a large hand full of raisins.  I just wanted to mix it in, so not kneed the dough too much!

Mix a Handful of Raisins into Dough

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Mixture

Next, made a mixture of cinnamon and brown sugar and set it aside.  I then rolled out my dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch or so, and sprinkled on the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture.  Finally, I took about 2 tablespoons of butter and worked it in/ that is covered the mixture so that a nice even layer of the cinnamon sugar goodness covered the entire slab of dough.  Finally, I rolled the dough up and sealed all ends and seams. I prepared a pizza peel with corn meal and set my creation aside to rise and set for 40 minutes.

Cinnamon-Brown Sugar Butter Mix

Set Aside to Rise

Can you taste the cinnamon goodness?  

I can!

So, that was the breakfast (yummy snack) bread.  

Now I wanted to make something to have with soups and dinners: rosemary garlic bread!  First I made a mixture of rosemary and DRY garlic shavings.  I got the garlic shavings last year in Missouri when I was workcamping.  There was this awesome store ran by the Amish, and they sold a bunch of homemade and organic foods and spices.  I had loaded up on the spices and the garlic shavings were part of that glorious shopping day.  However, I know you can purchase dry garlic shavings at a store.  Try finding this in bulk as it lasts a long time and is useful in cooking. Taking a small handful of garlic and rosemary, I mixed and rubbed the contents together and then worked it into the last bit of my dough. After mixing, I simply formed the dough into a nice round and set it next to the cinnamon raisin bread to rise. 

 I let both breads rise for 40 minutes total.  20 minutes into the process, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees. At the end of the 40 minutes, I made 1/4 inch slashes onto the top of the bread.  For the small round I did a checkered 4 classes (#), and for the raisin bread I made four separate slices. When the 40 minutes were up, I put it all into the oven on the upper rack, with a pan of water on the lower rack, and let the bread cook for about 40 minutes.

To be honest, I had little hope for the cinnamon raisin bread, and feared greatly that my experiment would turn out a hard piece of bread with uncooked portions in the middle.  Fortunately, was wrong; I got lucky!

        Hot bread from the oven! 

When I was done, I had two very tasty breads for my husband and myself!  Indeed, I had made very small loafs because it is just the two of us, and a larger loaf would go bad before we could eat it all. But that is the charm of the recipe - you can make a much or as little as you want.  I even used the dough for pizza one night, and that was delicious as well.  So, enjoy and I hope you give this fantastically simple bread recipe a try yourself!

R