Bread

On this blog we're all about the quick. The ratio of deliciousness to time must be maximized. So if I tell you I make fresh bread every day, and I make it the French way, baguettes, ficelles, and boules, you'd say, "I don't have time." Of course. I never had time to make bread either. But I discovered a book that revolutionized my bread baking. I found out that a wet bread dough can keep for a week or two in the refrigerator. So all we have to do is make a relatively wet dough, and then we can take a bit of this dough any time we want some fresh bread and bake it for 20 minutes. For this to be professional-good you'll have to invest in a $25 baking stone. The dough recipe is a famous ratio of 6-3-3-13. This means six cups tepid (not hot) water, 3 T yeast (I use regular old Fleischmann's Dry Yeast), 3 T kosher salt (or a bit less according to taste, but you need some salt), and 13 cups of flour. Note that this makes enough dough to capsize an Italian cruise ship. You can cut the recipe in half or in quarters easily, and it works just as well. Get a vessel for your dough that will fit in the refrigerator and will close up, but not tightly. You don't want explosions.
Place all ingredients in the dough vessel and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until you have a very wet, sticky dough. If required, wet your hands very well and incorporate the ingredients that remain. Don't knead--it's not kneaded. OMG I crack myself up. Place the vessel in a quiet, not cold, place and allow to rise for a while. It can rise for 2-5 or more hours. After a while (I have left it overnight on more than one occasion) it will increase in size by double or more. Use immediately or place in the refrigerator until needed. This whole step is best done on a weekend when you have time.
Now comes the quick and easy part, the busy executive bread baker part. When you want some fresh bread, take the dough vessel out and flour your hands well. The wet dough is very sticky. Grab a big piece of dough and tear it off the mass of dough, using a bread knife to saw a quantity of dough about the size of a grapefruit, more or less depending on how much you are making. Make sure your hands stay well floured. Take your dough ball and stretch the top around both sides to the bottom. Turn the ball a quarter turn and repeat. Repeat until you have "stretched" four times and you have a nicely round ball of dough. You may use this ball to make a "boule," or you may elongate it to make a baguette or even a ficelle. Keep your hands well floured and shape the dough into the type of bread you want. Place this dough on a piece of parchment paper on a pizza peel or cookie sheet. Allow the dough to rest for about 20-40 minutes while you prepare dinner. Turn the oven on to 450 F (220 C) and place the stone in the oven. I happen to have one of my commercial ovens dedicated to bread baking with a stone always in place. Goody gumdrops.
When the oven is ready you'll see that the dough has risen a bit and maybe flattened a bit. Not to worry, it will spring up in the heat (called "oven spring"). Get a cup of plain water and brush some water over the surface of the dough. If you are making a boule, dust it with flour, otherwise, do not. Now take a bread knife and slash the dough like you have seen on finished bread loaves; four or five slashes on a bias for a baguette, three across for a boule, etc.
Carefully, take the pizza peel or cookie sheet and slide the parchment plus bread dough onto the hot stone. Now, this is important. On a lower rack, place another pan with some ice cubes (maybe 2-4 cups of ice) to provide steam. Close the door and allow to cook for 15-20 minutes. After a while, check on the doneness by looking at the color of the crust. Since the dough is so wet, it can get quite brown and the inside will not be too dry. When finished, remove the bread and place onto a cooling rack to cool completely (although SOME PEOPLE will wish to make slices of still-warm bread and add butter).
Note that this recipe is very simple and minimally time consuming, but only once you get the hang of it. Prior to getting the hang of it, you may make several awful loaves of bread. All I can suggest is, keep plugging away because mastering this technique will change your cooking life. Lastly, I don't wash my dough vessel, a 9 liter food storage bin with a lid, I simply add more dough ingredients when it is too low to make another loaf and I mix the old in with the new. After a few rounds of this the dough definitely takes on a deeper sourdough flavor that adds quite a lot.
Good luck, good patience, and good eating. Oh and the book is "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Hertzberg and Francois.