A carbohydrate overload craze overtook my book club last year. My dear friend LeAnn started showing up at every gathering with homemade, delicious bread. We couldn’t stop ourselves from eating seconds, even thirds. The bread was crunchy on the outside and moist and holey on the inside. I’m famous in my circles for my no knead bread, so at first I thought that LeAnn was just using that recipe. One day when I was at her house, I saw a copy of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. Her secret was out of the bag. And as I perused the book, I saw that while the original recipe was similar to my no-knead bread, the book included over 50 other recipes based on one fantastic concept:
Mix up a large batch of dough and store it in the fridge for a week or two. During that time, whenever you want some bread, just cut off a chunk of dough with a bread knife, let it come to room temperature on your counter, and bake.
Voila! Fresh, hot, crusty bread with minimal work, time, or dishes. Now that’s a great idea.
Once you make this bread and realize just how easy it is, you’ll want to start buying your flour in 25 pound bags so that you always have enough on hand to whip up your favorite loaf!
five minute bread
from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
(makes four 1-pound loaves)
3 cups lukewarm water (110 degrees)
1 1/2 tbsp granulated yeast (2 packets) (instant yeast preferred)
1 1/2 tbsp kosher or other coarse salt
6 1/2 cups (27.6 oz) unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour, measured with the scoop and sweep method (see below)
cornmeal for pizza peel or rimless baking tray
I prefer to mix the bread in my KitchenAid stand mixer and then put the finished dough in a lidded dough container.
Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5 quart bowl, or preferably, in a resealable, lidded (not airtight) plastic container or food grade bucket. Don’t worry about getting all the yeast to dissolve.
When measuring out your flour, scoop out a cup and use a knife to scrape the excess off the top. Because you’re using so many cups of flour, a little error on each cup adds up to big difference in the end, so do take care in this. If you have a kitchen scale, you can just measure out 27.6 ounces of flour.
Mix in the flour all at once with a wooden spoon, a high capacity food processor with dough hook, or a heavy duty stand mixer fitted with the dough hook until the mixture is uniform. Do not knead the bread. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist without dry patches.
Cover with a lid (not airtight and allow to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse or at least flattens on top, approximately 2 hours, depending on the room’s temperature and the initial temperature of the water. You can let it rise up to 5 hours without ruining the dough.
You can use the dough at this point, although it’s far easier to work with the dough after it has been refrigerated for a couple of hours. The first time you try making this bread, let it sit in the fridge for at least 3 hours so it can firm up a bit.
On baking day:
Sprinkle a pizza peel or unrimmed baking sheet with cornmeal. Cover the dough with a thin layer of flour and pull and cut off a grapefruit-sized piece of dough using a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so that it won’t stick to your hands. Shape the dough into a ball as quickly as possible and rest on the cornmeal covered peel. This process should not take more than 30 seconds.
Let the loaf rest on the peel for about 40 minutes.
Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread.
Dust the bread with flour and cut several 1/4-inch-deep slashes on the top with a serrated knife.
After a 20 minute preheat, you’re ready to bake, even though your oven won’t be up to temperature. Run the tap water so that it gets hot. Slide the loaf onto the preheated baking stone. Quickly add 1 cup of hot tap water to the broiler tray and close the oven door to trap the steam.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. The inside will stay moist even though the outside is browning. Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire cooling rack. The crust may soften, but it will firm up again when cooled.
Store the remaining dough in the fridge in your lidded (not airtight) container and use over the next 14 days, repeating the “On baking day” steps from above.
18 responses so far ↓
1 Chef Dave // Jul 13, 2010 at 9:44 am
It’s funny that you mention the inconsistency of measuring flour. Here’s a fun little experiment (that admittedly takes a few kitchen gadgets to do ):
1) Using a sifter, fill a 1 cup measuring spoon. If you don’t have a sifter (get one!) then you can use a strainer and just tap the sides of it. The idea is to get the flour as loose as possible. Scrape the top of the cup. Weight (using ounces ideally) the resulting measure of flour.
2) Fill the same cup with flour and pack it down as much as you can. Continue filling and packing until the cup won’t take any more flour. Scrape off the top of the cup and weigh the result.
You might be surprised at the difference between the two (or perhaps not if you’ve done it before or are a prognosticator…)
Any baker worth their salt will tell you to always weigh dry ingredients. An electric kitchen scale that measures in ounces, while seemingly expensive (though there are some cheap ones out there – which won’t last as long, mind), is a worthy investment. Aside from dry ingredients, it can also help with portioning your food. A “healthy” serving can vary depending upon what is being served (and how many meals are eaten in a day), but a typical meal might be 4oz of protein, 6-8oz of fresh fruits and/or vegetables and 2-4oz of starch. Those are pre-cooked portion sizes (most fruits/vegetables have a high percentage of “water weight” which will often reduce when cooked.)
(Tip: to help keep the scale clean, cover it with plastic wrap for each different type of food. Electric scales can break down sooner if you get them wet all the time.)
2 LeAnn // Jul 13, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Hurrah for 5 minute bread! Your loaves are beautiful.
There are some great recipes in there… I love the sandwich bread, and the European Peasant bread. So easy, and so yummy.
3 Jenn N // Sep 23, 2010 at 11:39 pm
I’m making this (next week, when 100 degrees goes away). Thanks for the tip!
4 Diane Dodd // Mar 6, 2011 at 7:01 am
What is a lidded dough container?
5 Paula // Mar 6, 2011 at 9:35 am
Diane – you could use a large bowl with a lid or you can buy a container that is explicitly for letting dough rise. I picked one up at our local restaurant supply store (Cash and Carry – Pleasant Hill). It’s a straight-edged container with markings on the side so you can see when your dough has doubled in volume. Great for making breads that call for this in the recipe!
6 greg // May 15, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Wow I have to say that is making me extremely hungry! There is nothing better than home made bread… I have to say I have a massive weak spot for Tiger Bread from Morrisons but its not very good for the waste line!
7 Vanessa // Oct 30, 2011 at 11:22 pm
I have to try this =)
8 Dana S. // Nov 12, 2011 at 5:22 am
When the dough gets through rising, do you punch it down before putting in frige?
9 Paula @ dishing the divine // Nov 13, 2011 at 10:35 am
Nope!!!!! Just put the dough in the fridge as is!
10 Pat // Nov 16, 2011 at 8:46 pm
You can also reduce the amount of salt in the bread, unfortunately some of us can’t have that amount of salt in bread, talked with a baker and he said it would be fine, tried it and enjoy it with less.
11 Tessa // Dec 6, 2011 at 10:08 am
Would this recipe work well with whole wheat flour or part whole wheat?
12 erin // Feb 22, 2012 at 12:59 pm
is the dough supposed to be sticky when you put it in the bucket to rise?
13 Paula // Feb 22, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Erin, Yes! Not liquid, but definitely a bit of stickiness isn’t going to hurt anyone.
It’s softer than a normal loaf of bread. When you cut some of it off to use in your recipe, you’ll be adding a bit of flour that’s on your hands and work surface, so it will work out. 
14 Cindi // May 14, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I am baking off my first loaf now! It didn’t rise in the 40 minutes pre-baking like I thought it would… Was it supposed to?
15 Paula // May 14, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Cindi – you should see a bit of rise, but not as much as you’re used to. You’ll see it rise in the oven a bit as well. BTW, my new favoritest bread ever to make is the no knead bread on this same blog. Cooked in a dutch oven, it gives me perfect results every time. Unlike the 5 minute bread, it requires a bit more forethought in terms of planning!
16 Pam // Mar 28, 2013 at 2:24 pm
how long is the baking time to make it into rolls? love the bread!
17 lisa k // Nov 1, 2013 at 12:06 pm
breadtopia .com has some great no knead bread baking recipes and videos. just made some today.
18 Jay // Feb 14, 2015 at 5:03 pm
I have always wanted to learn how to make homemade hot bread for my husband and children. I have always bought it from markets, now I think I can do this after I get all of the things that I need. I never watched my mom, and we had hot soft buttery rolls every Sunday after church. Shame I did not learn. I think this is a great recipe for me (Beginner). Thanks Paula