Magic bread

Do you know about Catherine Newman's Five-Minute Bread? I discovered this recipe several months ago and it is magic. Magic, I tell you. And this is coming from a long-time fan and proponent of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. But Newman's recipe is even easier. And is also magical.

"Oh, come on," I can hear you saying. "I'm sure it's easy, but 'magical'? Really?"

Well to you I say, "REALLY." Because I can't think of a better word to describe a recipe that you cannot screw up. No matter what you do. Today, for example, I baked up a loaf from dough that I mixed up two nights ago, and then forgot to put in the refrigerator after the "maximum" rising time of 5 hours. I saw it when I was up with the baby and put it in at 4:30 am or so, which was approximately 8.5 hours of rising time. And for this (and the last three) loaves, I've been using old rye flour and the dough comes out extra extra wet. So wet that when I took it out this morning to let it rest, I had to put the cutting board it was on onto a pizza peel because it was oozing so much.

Witness:



But since this combination of flours (2c water, 2c rye, 2c all purpose, 1/6c flaxseed, 1/6c wheat germ, 1T cider vinegar, 1T kosher salt, 1 scant T yeast) has been making really wet doughs all week, I went ahead and scraped it into the pot. SCRAPED. I use a long knife and it sort of gloops off the cutting board. There's a very small step between what I'm doing and pouring this dough.

Here's the result:



Isn't that gorgeous? I didn't even slash the top, since it would have been like trying to slash quicksand. It just did that by itself. I haven't tasted it yet, but experience tells me it will be delicious. So make this bread. Trust me.