{"id":14686,"date":"2013-10-25T14:25:10","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T19:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crankymouse.com\/?p=14686"},"modified":"2013-10-25T17:10:15","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T22:10:15","slug":"pain-depi-wheat-stalk-bread-the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crankymouse.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/25\/pain-depi-wheat-stalk-bread-the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Pain d’Epi {Wheat Stalk Bread}: The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recipe for making pain d’epi or what stalk bread loaves, as well as a photo tutorial on how to cut the loaf. (Recipe from The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day<\/em>.)
\n\"How<\/a>
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It is my life’s goal to do as little as possible.
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Let me rephrase. It’s my life’s goal to spend as little time as I can doing anything categorized under “things that must get done” like making dinner, doing laundry, scrubbing floors. The reason is so that I have time to do all the other things: learning 3rd and 4th languages, taking classes that force me to read classic and arcane literature, baking chocolate chip cookies, reading for pleasure, bike riding, making 12 flavors of sorbet just because I can, teaching my kids how to snowboard at the same time I teach myself, listening to music, playing music, teaching my children how to play music, berry picking, staring off into the distance.
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Basically, I just want to find a way to stretch seconds out into full hours so that I can fit more into my day. I don’t really want to do nothing, but I do want to have more control over what I’m spending my precious minutes doing. While I enjoy baking bread and think it can be cathartic, while I enjoy cooking and find it can feed my need for creativity, and while I am endlessly amazed at how fulfilling it can be to feed other people, there are times when the very things I love become tedious.
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There are six of us. We eat three times a day. Some of those meals just need to be easy and not take up all the minutes I have for life enrichment because my soul will die if I don’t get to _______ (fill in the blank with any number of activities I enjoy). You do not want to see me soulless. It is rather disturbing.
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\nTo aid in accomplishing this life’s goal I had a bunch of kids to do things for me.
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That’s not true at all. Children have a way of filling space and time, not the other way around. They also produce endless amounts of joy and unending love, as well as bread<\/em>. My kids have opened a bakery in my kitchen that produces epi loaves in mass quantities.
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While we’ve been using “Bread in 5” books for several years now, the epi obsession started after my eldest saw an Instagram photo from Zo\u00eb<\/a> of one such loaf, and then there was no hearing the end of it until we looked up how to cut the baguette dough just right, and it turned out to be surprisingly simple.
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Step 1<\/strong>: Mix large quantities of dough and let rise.
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Step 2<\/strong>: Cut off a 1\/2-pound (or so) ball of dough.
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Step 3<\/strong>: Shape the dough into an oval, and then fold that oval.
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Step 4<\/strong>: Pull log of dough to your desired size and let it rest.
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Step 5<\/strong>: Flour the dough, and then cut into it at a 45\u00ba angle, alternating sides as you pull your little slices outward.
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Step 6<\/strong>: Bake it.
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\nWhether you have kids to do this for you or not, the idea that making your own bread could be so straightforward and take just minutes is not a new one. In fact, this specific method and idea has been widely available since 2007 when the first Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day<\/em> came out, changing bread baking as we knew it (no kneading), and now there’s a revised and updated edition with new photos, new recipes, and \u2013 ::copious grinning:: \u2013 weighted measures. We should all convert to metric weighted measures, don’t you agree?<\/p>\n

Giving it all away.<\/h3>\n

I’m giving away a copy of The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day<\/em><\/a> by Jeff Hertzberg, MD and Zo\u00eb Fran\u00e7ois. Just comment below for a chance to be entered to win so you can stop buying bakery bread and start making it at home.
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This giveaway runs until Friday, November 1st at 11:59 p.m. CT, at which point I will randomly select a comment and then email a lucky person to receive the book. It is provided by the lovely authors and their publisher, St. Martin’s Press. I asked Zoe for this book so that I could review it because I already knew I wanted it (I have the original, as well as the other two in the series), and she was more than happy to comply. Also, I was planning on writing about the epi and realized my timing coincided with the new book release. Kismet.<\/em>
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\nNotes<\/strong>:<\/p>\n