There must be a Dutch oven or no-knead bread recipe on almost every self-respecting food blog or site. When Mark Bittman first mentioned Jim Lahey’s recipe, in 2006, in the NY Times, it became one of their most popular articles. The use of the Dutch oven radiates heat while keeping in the moisture of the dough. This helps create the wonderful crust found on breads baked in professional steam ovens.

Whenever I made this bread I was delighted with the result and played with various variations. However, when play soon became necessity when I needed to go dairy -free because of my kids’ allergies. Food labeling was so tricky, that I only ate what I had made with my own two hands.

A few years later I learnt about Artisan Bread in Five from a friend. It was a similar recipe but the bread was baked on a pissa stone and emptying water in a hot baking pan in a preheated oven was involved. With my natural clumsiness, I immediately knew that any attempt to do so would lead me straight to the ER. However using a Dutch oven was suggested as an alternative.

What impressed my though was their claim that you could store their dough up to 14 days in the refrigerator without any problem. This meant that by preparing in a large amount of dough 5 minutes, we could have fresh bread, pita and even pizza base every day with very little fuss.

I’ve tried the recipes above for at least a week in the fridge and they do keep well, you can experiment with whichever you prefer. My favorite version is as follows:

• 700 gr. warm water
• 10 gr. active dry yeast
• 1 kg of flour
• 15 gr. salt

You can find the Artisan Bread in 5 method for the Master recipe here. Their books are quite interesting and I’ve certainly made good use of The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book.

Soon you will find recipe variations with olive bread, chocolate and nuts, turmeric and pizza. If you sign up for the newsletter, you’ll find out soon as they are ready.