My first ABIN5 bread

[housewolf]

This was my first encounter with the ABIN5 bread and I was excited to give it a go. I used Gold Medal's Unbleached All Purpose flour and mixed up a half-batch only. I used 100 degree water and started out mixing the dough by hand but then threw it in my Cuisinart mixer for about 30 seconds to well-incorporate the flour. I had a total of about 28 ounces of dough.

Here's the dough right after it was mixed:



The dough sat out on my counter at room temp, 68 - 70 degrees) for 2 hours, then I put it into the refrigerator.

Here's the dough 2 hours later, just before it went into the refrigeratior:



This morning, I cut off about 1/3 of the dough (9 ounces) and set it on top of well-floured parchment paper and shaped gently nudged it into a sort of log shape, then gently elongated the log, tightening up the dough by using the sides of my hands and gently pinching the dough together at the bottom of the loaf. I lightly covered it with a piece of lightly-sprayed plastic wrap the turned a bowl upside down over the loaf to protect it (from the air as well as from my new dog :=) ). I let it sit for about an hour to warm up some. While the loaf was rising I prepared my oven with tiles and cast iron skillet, and turned the oven on to 450 degrees to pre-heat for hour the loaf was rising.

After about an hour I scored the loaf and put the loaf into the oven, parchment and all, poured some water into the cast iron skillet and shut the oven door. 5 or 10 minutes into the bake I opened the oven to try to remove the parchment paper and found it stuck to the bottom of the loaf, so I just left it until near the end of the bake when I needed to use my bench scraper to separate the parchment from the loaf. The bottom of the loaf ended up more pale and softer than the rest of the loaf.

Here's the loaf just taken out of the oven:



I let it cool for about an hour and then cut into it:

A couple pictures of the crumb after the loaf had cooled:





I was quite pleased! The baked loaf came out at 8 oz, 9" long, 3" wide and about 2" high. I loved the color. The crust came out of the oven crisp but softened up rapidly (not sure why, but it might be the humidity today... it was around 80% this afternoon, though we didn't get any rain for a change). The crumb is somewhat dense with mostly small but irregular holes and some larger holes.

The bread is pretty chewy but the flavor is delicious! Very rich and full-flavored, much more so than I had expected. I understand why people are so in love with this bread - it's easy and delicious, perfect for families with job and time constraints.

So while my shaping techniques continue to need improvment, I'm happy with the experiement and glad that I finally have some personal experience with the bread. I think I may have baked the bread a bit before it was really ready, so I'll wait longer next time. Also next time I'll spray the parchment with a bit of cooking spray before laying down the flour and shaping the dough so that I can pull the parchment out early in the bake. I'd like to figure out how to create a crispier crust and less chewiness but all in all, I'm quite pleased. I have 2/3 of the dough left so I'll get to see how it turns out on days 2 & 3.

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Damn, you're good!

[troubleinwinter]

2. This was an interesting read!

I know you are an experienced baker, and was happy to read that you had a fairly good take on it.

I have NEVER baked bread before, but moved away fro SF area a coupla years ago and desperately miss the breads. I feel I now have a good bread.

My father is 80, of a European family, and also moved here, having lived his whole life in LA & SF areas where he was raised on "French" and "Italian" and sour dough breads. He now makes Ain5 himself (thanks to C&B forum), having never baked before. He is HAPPY with the bread, and is bragging all over town about his bread, and all of his pals want to try it!

"my shaping techniques continue to need improvment". Hahahah!!! My dad and I have never made bread before. Phooey on shapes! We got better bread than ya can buy anywhere around this one-horse town!

Wait till ya get that stuff aged a bit (carrying over one batch to another) and it takes on the sour taste.

Lucinda told me how to make killer Rye, too. OMG!!!!!

For us newbies, it has been a blast, and we have great bread!

[housewolf]

3. I'm so happy that you, your dad, and so many others

have finally found a way to make such wonderful bread at home, and that it's SO easy! That someone is happy and in love with the bread that they're making... that's the ONLY thing that's important... none of the rest of it matters (whether it's sourdough or yeast or how the loaves look)... it's about the taste and the goodness of homemade bread that counts. I love the story of your dad baking his own bread! And I'm thrilled that you and so many others who never considered making their own bread are having such great success and so much fun. My hat's off to all home bread bakers!

[troubleinwinter]

4. Thank you for that!

You and Lucinda have about covinced me to do a sour dough starter. It is less and less resistable when ya post all them pitchas of ugly delicious yeasties! (festers?)

You know I know Peter, but starter looked impossibly complicated to me in his book, so it's only now that I have developed an interest. Ya all have SHOWN how NOT complicated it is!

Shoot. Now I think I'm startin' starter tomorrow.

Here's a note: I don't have Peter's books anymore ('cept Sacramental Magic in a Small Town Cafe). Sister-in-law's beloved had just started Culinary Academy in San Francisco and saw my autographed books. Her particular interest was breads. Well, she completely disappeared into Crust and Crumb for hours in sheer fascination and joy. I told her, "Those books are yours, ya know." The look on her face was as she'd won the lottery. Couple weeks later, when his nextbook came out, I had it shipped to her. I figure the world has better bread for it.

[Lucinda]

5. You're such a sweetie! That was a great thing to do.

I'm glad you're thinking sourdough. It really is pretty easy. I'm glad I tried it. I should be baking my first loaf in the next day or so!

[troubleinwinter]

7. Yah, well,

I think you & yer pals have about pushed me into it. Housewolf's starter was so gross ugly, how can I not? I figure if it's that ugly, it must smell and taste divine. Yours looks nice, so I am overlooking it for the time being.

But I aint going whimpy way with a few tablespoons, I'm gonna go a CUP when I go! That'll show 'em.

[Lucinda]

10. I have four bowls of King Arthur starter plus Fester sitting on my counter right now.

I'm giving two bowls away this afternoon and saving one of the King Arthur Flour for insurance and baking with the other. Plus Fester will be ready soon.

I'm up to my eyeballs in sourdough today!

:rofl: it's always either feast or famine...

[Lucinda]

6. You got some beautiful color and crumb there!

Great job. Isn't it amazing what great flavor you get with this bread?

I am still occasionally getting a softer bottom, but I think, in my case, it's weather related since I am doing everything the same way with Ain5 now.

[Warpy]

8. I always dust the parchment with cornmeal

before turning the dough onto it. Not only does it help the bread part company with the paper, it also gives the loaf a little extra flavor and crunch.

That loaf is beautiful, though. It is crying out for that big pot of soup I hope you made to go with it.

[hippywife]

9. Beautiful, B!

Thanx for all the pics, too. It really is a good way to have fresh bread ready to bake when there isn't time for something more involved. Glad you finally tried it and enjoyed the experience. :hi:

[NMDemDist2]

11. well with Housewolf's approval, now everyone has no excuse

:evilgrin:

so glad you tried it, just start the next batch right on top of the left over bits of the first one.

I'm on my 9th generation and the flavor just gets deeper and more sour

:hi:

[me b zola]

12. A couple of questions

Did you put the water in the hot cast iron for steam for crispy crust? And did you place your loaf on a stone or just a baking sheet?

Your bread looks wonderful and I have been wanting to try the recipe myself/ :)

[housewolf]

14. Yes to both hot cast iron & oven tiles

I set a cast iron skillet on the bottom of the oven. I use 6" ungalzed quarry tiles (6 of them) in my oven that I buy at Home Depot for less than $1 a piece. I pre-heated the tiles & the cast iron for about an hour at 500 degrees before while the loaf rose.

When ready to bake, kind of tucked up the sides of the loaf into the center of the bottom to make the loaf more round and tight, then I transferred the loaf onto a piece of parchment paper that I'd sprayed with a small amount of cooking spray, placed it on the tiles, poured some water into the skillet and shut the door. About 5 minutes into the bake I pulled the parchment out from under the bread so that it continued to cook directly on the stones.

No matter how your first loaf looks, that ABIN5 process is giving people wonder-tasting bread. I haven't heard from anyone who hasn't just loved it. I've been baking bread for about 12 years now and have had a little experience handling wet doughs like the ABIN5 dough and still feel that my shaping skills need improvement. That said... the way to improve is to practice often! And the really great thing is that the bread tastes great no matter what the loaf looks like. Boules are a bit easier to make, too, than the long loaves.

Best of luck to you, I hope you start with the ABIN5 recipe soon, and get to making some delicious, home made bread for yourself and your family. It will be a wonderful gift to all of you.


:toast:

[AwakeAtLast]

13. I can't wait to buy this book!

I was going to use the Amazon link somewhere in this forum, but they wanted to charge almost 50% of the price of the book to ship it! I will be making a visit to a bookstore sometime this week instead.

Your pictures are great! Hope my first foray turns out that well!

:hi:

[housewolf]

15. The basic recipe is available online

links to it have been posted here on this forum, too, both the one from Mother Earth magazine and the one from the ABIN5 book corrections web site. You could try doing a search for Artisan Bread in 5 minutes and I'm sure it will come up for you, or leave a post here asking for the links and someone will provide them. The benefit of the book is that it includes many variations and forms of bread based on the ABIN5 process, but the basic bread recipe itself can be easily found online.

Thanks for the compliements! Many people are making breads that are delicious and that they and their families are very happy with, I'm betting that you can too. Happy bread baking to you! I know you'll be able to turn out wonderful breads from your kitchen.

:bounce:

[AwakeAtLast]

16. Thanks

I printed off two versions. I actually have everything needed except the yeast. We are going to the grocery tomorrow, so I will pick some up. It is Spring Break for me, so I will be trying this about Tuesday or so (along with the crepes). All of a sudden I'm not so bummed about being too broke to travel. :D

[housewolf]

20. Buy instant yeast if your store carries it

I like SAF the best, I like the flavor more than Fleishman's or Red Star. If they don't have SAF, try Fleishman's bread machine yeast, it's just a fancy name for an instant yeast.

[eleny]

17. What lovely bread!

[hippywife]

18. After making this

how many times now, I goofed today and just now realized what happened. I used only one packet of yeast. It didn't rise very much but it's in the fridge. Anything I can do to salvage it at this point?

's what I get for doing too many things at one time. Took my eye off the ball.

[housewolf]

19. You could try this

Mix up another half-batch but add to it your missing packet of yeast then combine the two batches together... you might want to do it in the KA with the dough hook for just a couple minutes since it would combine them better than trying to do it by hand. That way you'd have a batch and a half with the correct amount of yeast. As long as they are well-combined, that should work.

[hippywife]

21. Thanx, B.

I'll give it a shot. It's pretty useless as it is so it couldn't hurt to try it. :hi:

[hippywife]

22. I did this today and it appears to have worked.

Although it would have worked better if I would have done it before the first rise. Bill figured that out without me saying anything. LOL

If nothing else, I'll have pizza crusts at hand for at least a month or more. So no loss.

Thanx for your help. :hug:

[housewolf]

23. I'm glad it worked out okay for you

I'm had to rescue some of my own this morning... planned on making a half batch of sourdough with my new starter but didn't write down the adjusted measurements... so I ended up putting in the full batch's amount of water... grrrrr... fortunately I caught my mistake before I'd mixed the water in and was able to pour back out a goodly amount of it, but it's an AWFULLY wet dough! :dunce:

It's refrigerating overnight, I'll bake it tomorrow night and see what I end up with...

So you can take some comfort in knowing that you're not the only one who messes up their bread dough from time to time...


:rofl:

[hippywife]

24. We all get a little absent minded when there's lots to do.

So I won't feel bad if you do it, too. That's usually what happens when I'm having a bad weekend in the kitchen and things aren't flowing. :rofl:

This weekend I made Peter Reinhart's whole wheat sandwich bread, the Ain5 dough, yogurt,cornbread, a pot of black-eyed peas, an apple pie, sticky buns, cookies, ice cream, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. The only thing I messed up was the Ain5 bread and with your help it was salvaged so I'll call that a good weekend in the kitchen.

[housewolf]

25. Holy cow, woman!

You ought to be running a restaurant, cooking up that much a variety of yummies!

I used to love days of cooking up a whole variety of different things but my gosh... you must have spent your entire weekdend in the kitchen!

I know you wouldn't do it if it wasn't so well appreciated, though... and 'cause you love him and the cooking, both!


You're an O8)