Au Bon Pain

One of the wonderful gifts that we received when we moved out west was a cookbook entitled Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  Jordan and I have perused this book many times, practically drooling over the pictures of the delectable loaves of bread, pastries and biscuits it contained.  The book's premise is that, in just minutes, one can make a batch of dough, refrigerate it, and use this as a base to make various ethnic breads and other sweet delights.  Sounds easy, right?  Well, yes, it is very simple, but the thought of making homemade bread was just a little more than this weary Mom could handle.

After much imploring with no results, the husband of said Mom decided to take matters into his own hands.  Literally.  Well, almost...  (He did cheat and use the dough hook on our Kitchen Aid, but we'll just keep that a secret between us, shall we?)  Of course, I'm pretty sure that this Dad was also quite unprepared for all of the "help" that 2 additional little sets of hands provided, but I'm happy to report that my kitchen is still intact, the mess has been cleaned, and Annabel & Thane are still talking to their father.

 

We made our first loaves of bread earlier today.  Let me say, without too much prejudice, that this bread is REALLY GREAT!  We didn't get too fancy this time, but it didn't matter.  Our warm, peasant bread was deliciously perfect with some homemade raspberry jam.  I'd love to tell you more about it, but I'm going to run and grab another piece before it's gone!