Really Fast and Delicious Bread Baking

On and off for the last couple of years I've tried to get into bread baking. I don't have enough strength in my hands to knead bread effectively, and I just got sore hands and poor results when I tried traditional recipes. I got a stand mixer for my birthday last year. I found this to be very effective for pizza dough, but not as effective for whole wheat. My machine is just shy of being strong enough for large batches of whole wheat dough, and I had such mixed results when it came to the amount of rising, that I got frustrated and stopped trying again.

I then started to hear more about "no knead" bread recipes. I tried a white flour recipe with pretty good results, but the whole wheat bread recipe from the same author was incredibly dense. I found a book in the library that promised to be simple, but there were multiple steps with precise numbers of hours specified in between each step, and it just seemed like a scheduling nightmare.

Then I came across Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I thought it sounded incredibly gimmicky, but the reviews all insisted that this was the real deal, and I have to say that I agree.

This was my first attempt:

It's only gotten better from there. I've made pizza, flat breads, crusty boules, rustic breads with a touch of rye or cornmeal added, and whole wheat bread.

This is the whole wheat bread that I made yesterday and have been eating for breakfast:

I'll be mixing up another batch of dough this weekend. So I'll post photos and more info on the process then. In the meantime, I'll be making pizza for dinner with the dough that I mixed up last Friday. Yum.