I have not had the problem of the dough being soupy before. If I try to make it the first day the dough is softer than if its sits in the fridg. to rest a few days.

This bread does not rise as much as conventional bread recipes.
Maybe someone else here will have a suggestion, but just in case here is the website. If you ask the authors of the book they usually reply rather quickly.

Here is a link that might be useful: Artisan Bread in Five

This video maybe helpful.

Here is a link that might be useful: Artisan Bread in 5

Below is the link to my version with slight modifications to the recipe and the way I do it.
This is the only bread we eat now, it is really simple and very very good.
Hope you get it working for you as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: My 5 minute artisan bread

Thanks to each of you for your replies. I visited the two websites.

Trudy and Lucyny, I had not seen the website and will be returning to it, I am sure. Thanks for the link and the link to the video. My dough did not look the same as their's on the next day. I have already emailed them my question and hope to hear back in a day or two. Thanks for the suggestion.

Punamytsike, I enjoyed visiting your creative website and will return to it later. Your great room ceiling is stunning! And your bread doesn't look bad either. In fact, mine looked the same until the day I tried to take it out of the container. See out-of-focus snapshot below.

I'll keep trying and thanks to all.

In your pix of the dough...yes it looks way to soupy.
Will be anxious to hear what the authors post back for your problem. To me it almost seems like you havent put enough flour. But if it comes out like that every time, then I am just not sure.
I enjoy the bread website, there are lots of great ideas on using the dough.

punamytsike will try your version of the recipe soon. Thanks for posting your site.

Thanks :)
If you put little more than exactly what is posted, it will be easier to work with. I use always a generous cup of what ever flour, and yes, adoptedbygreyhounds, yours looks way too liquid.

Lilianne, Thanks for the tutorial! I will share it with my 13 year old neighbor; he is coming over for a bread making class. His family takes turns making dinner.

Cathy, let me know how it comes out. You know, I was trying to get my son, the one in college, to start baking his own bread. I gave them the recipe, nothing. Then I made the dough and sent it with him to school, no bread. But once I used the same dough as pizza base, he now asks for the dough every time he comes home, as he uses it for pizza and everyone loves it :)

I've been making this bread for nearly a year and we love it.

What is the dough like when you mix it up for the first time? You should have a fairly stiff dough -- and should have to work it a bit to finish incorporating the flour.

Do you get a good rise when you leave it on the counter after mixing it up? How long does it take to double in size?

I've found that I have better luck and more consistent results with bread when I measure flour by weight instead of volume. I have excellent results measuring out 5 ounces for each cup of flour. So, for the Boule recipe, you'd measure out 32.5 ounces (2 lbs 1/2 ounce) of flour.

I hope you're able to discover the cause -- how frustrating!

Best,

Tamara
GardenWeb Community Manager

Also - the book has errors that should be noted - some may be the part of the problem. I believe they have a list of errors on their website. I went through the list and made the changes in my book.

Bonnie

Tamara, good to see you posting as a real live person who COOKS. We all have to feed ourselves when we get home from our 9-5, LOL!

adoptedbygreyhounds, how is Voldemort.

I agree that your dough looks way too soupy. Mine has always come out just fine, but I think the rising times they give in the book are way too short (at least in this cold climate). I always let my bread rise about double what the book says. I use the dough for rolls a lot because those don't take long to rise and you can make them in time for dinner.

Tamara, I'm with Jessica, welcome as a real person. Oh, unless she is infiltrating to see if we are behaving!

I think Grainlady advocates weighing versus measuring. I have been wanting to check my measuring cups since I read about the variance in the measuring tools.

I think I would also consider the type of flour you're using. Flours differ.

Tamara makes a really good observation - You should have a fairly stiff dough -- and should have to work it a bit to finish incorporating the flour.

You can tell if the dough is too wet during the mix it up phase.

Now, when it comes to weighing the flour, initially when I started baking bread, I did this religiously, then I got tired of it and guess what, the bread comes out as good as ever. So little bit wetter or dryer will not make a huge difference after all. But it has to be dry enough so that you can shape it and slash it :)

Ah Ha!

Tamara and Punamytsike may have helped solve the problem. It was easy to stir together the first day. I just weighed the flour and found that 6.5 cups (All-purpose Pillsbury) of my flour weighed about 24 ounces, quite a bit less that the 32 oz mentioned in your post. Woo hoo! I am off to try another batch.

Thanks to all for your practical tips and suggestions. The Cooking Forum is the greatest1

Tamara, whenever I see your sign in name, I start humming "Guantanamera" in my head.

Bons, I did notice the printing errors on their website and intend to mark them in my book, too.

Jessyf, thanks so much for asking about Voldemort. Sadly, we lost him this spring to acute renal failure with no warning. He survived a year and a half after sarcoma. He was a heck of a dog and he is missed. Blitzen has another fur brother, though. My son has moved home for a while with his little dog, Duke who is very outgoing and adorable little dog and keeps things lively around here.

Houscrzy, our house stays pretty cool, too, and I have noticed the longer rising times with other recipes.

Thanks again to everyone. I will post back here is a couple of days to report on progress, but I am very optimistic that the problem is solved. I never realized that measuring alone would make such a difference.

P.S. I just had another thought. I never sift, but I leave a wire whisk in the canister and stir it up just before measuring. Maybe I should stop doing that.

Oh drat I'm so sorry to hear about Voldy. I have a soft spot for greyhounds, even though I'm not a dog person. Sending a hug.

Thanks for the hug, Jessyf.

I'm just reporting back that this loaf of peasant bread turned out beautifully and I am a happy camper and ready to start looking at the variations on the basic recipe. Thanks again for the practical advice.

That's beautiful!

Is there a secret to making the slashes? My bread seems to deflate when I try. I have a decent knife, but it hasn't been professionally sharpened in a while.

Great job, beautiful!

I'm glad that you were able to figure out the problem. Thanks for following up with us.

Thanks, Mustangs!

Jessica, you're asking me? LOL I read to use a serrated knife and a liberal coating of flour (prevents the dough from sticking).

Well, I didn't know either of those things, so I'm glad I asked you :-D

adoptedbygreyhounds, thanks for demonstrating tenacity and posting the pic of that beautiful loaf.

I'm pretty new at yeast breads and my luck w/ the AB in 5 Mins./Day recipe has been mixed. Reading through these posts has been helpful. I never considered that my relatively cool house might require double the rising time for success.

I read all these posts avidly because I got the book for Christmas and couldn't wait to try the bread. I also have been reading the authors' web site and other cooking forums for advice.

I made the bread and found that it was way too salty. I have been emailing the authors with questions and they said you could reduce the salt, so I did with the batch of peasant bread I mixed up today. The boule I made tasted pretty good but I also thought the dough was very wet. I was wondering why they didn't list weights of the flours instead of volume. Now I will weigh the flour according to gwtamara's suggestions.

I also watched the video and got some information from that. In the book, it sounded like only very little flour should be added when shaping, but I noticed in the video the authors dipped the whole dough in a dish of flour! I will try that. In the corrections, (didn't they have a proofreader?) they said the resting time could be from 40 minutes to 1 1/2 hours! How are we supposed to tell when it is ready to be baked?

I also had trouble with the slashes - they closed up as soon as I slashed them. I'm glad I saw the video where Jeff just slashed them deeply with no problem sticking.

blueheron,
Did you use course salt (kosher or sea salt)?

The dough should be wet but not so wet you can't do anything with it. I mix the ingredients in my KitchenAid just until blended then dump it into a big stoneware bowl I've got. I leave it on the counter, loosely covered with plastic wrap, for 2 or 3 hours. Then I deflate it with a plastic spatula (really, the thing from my rice cooker) and dump it on the well-floured counter (since I'm usually baking one loaf that day). I keep a spice jar (that once held sesame seeds) about half full of flour and shake enough flour onto the dough that I can touch it without sticking. I cut off a lump - sometimes 1/4 sometimes 1/3- with a bench knife/scraper then scoop the rest of the dough into a container with a loose fitting lid for it's fridge time. I use a piece of cornmeal sprinkled parchment paper on a flat cookie sheet and let it sit for about an hour. I preheat the baking stone, sprinkle the slash area with the flour (from the spice jar) and cut with a sharp paring knife -somtimes freshly run through the sharpener gadget. I cut about 1/4-1/2" deep then slide the paper onto the stone (and of course add the water to the other preheated pan).

I think a lot of it is not adding too much flour to the interior of the dough.

Disclaimers: I use KA bread flour - haven't tried any others yet. I also live at 7000' elevation in a very dry climate with a generally cool house. I haven't made the bread anywhere else, so YMMV.

I used Kosher salt as per the recipe and reduced it by about a half for the the peasant loaf I made today and it turned out fine. I slashed the top according to the video and it worked out perfectly.

I just use the parchment paper without the cornmeal and it was fine, although the paper got a little brown around the edges. I removed it after the loaf was firm in order to brown the bottom.

I thought the authors said the dough wasn't to be deflated by hand?

The only thing about this bread recipe that is a problem of sorts is the fact that the oven has to be heated to such a high temp and that ramps up the electric bill. Some of the recipes in the book only call for a temp of 350'F. or so. I will be making them.

I would like to be able to make more than one loaf at a time to give them away but unfortunately there's not enough room on the pizza stone. Maybe I could get two baguettes on it. hmmm...

I'm not sure about the deflating, I don't actually have the book (yet) and if it's in the article where I got the recipe, I missed or forgot it.

Glad you got the salt to work for you. I just figured I'd ask just in case...

I don't have a peel and I tried using just the cornmeal on my cookie sheet - just once, won't do it again. I actually use cornmeal b/c I like it on the bottom of the loaf but I hadn't thought about browning the bottom. I know it comes out crisp even with the paper but I may try sliding it off to see if it makes a significant difference.

I did make 2 loaves on the stone at Thanksgiving. When I set the dough out, I shaped it a bit into a narrower loaf. They were close but they did fit.

I'm curious to know how the whole grain recipes turn out compared to the basic Boule. I really like breads with wheat berries, sunflower seeds etc in them. Do they have recipes like that in the book?

Here is a link that might be useful: Article

I was looking at this book in Borders on Christmas Eve. I just might have to treat myself to a "New Years gift"! LOL

Looks too easy and since I am yeast bread challenged, this may turn things around for me!

Linda

I slash my bread on the second rise (I don't use the 5 minutes book), and it usually has enough umph left for oven spring. I think the 5 minute bread is rather bland tasting, and I'm all for longer, slower rises. Carol Field's Italian Baker is my favorite bread book. It's out of print, but worth searching out at a library or used book store.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Italian Baker

I agree with you that the 5 minute bread is bland tasting. I only made two batches and I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. It's ok, but not as good as the bread in "The Best Bread Ever" by Charles Van Over which is now out of print, but you can get used ones at Amazon. The book recommends kneading the bread in the food processor with the chopping blade, not the bread kneading one. He uses a slow rise and that makes the bread delicious. The only thing that I didn't like was that to make whole wheat bread, which is what I mostly eat, you had to make a starter and I didn't want to have to deal with a starter in the frig that you had to keep adding flour to.

Greenbean, they do have whole grain recipes in the book. I want to try them and I hope they turn out better than the others.

I made the peasant bread and it is supposed to make 3 one- pound loaves. I made one loaf and the dough left is definitely not enough for 2 more loaves. I guess I'll make one big loaf or 2 small ones. Also, it is so vague about rising times - 40 min or 1 1/2 hours. I like recipes to be more specific. (That's how Virgos are. LOL)