Bread Adventures (Batch 9) Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

..still baking away following  along the Artisan Bread book!  I am still having a blast :-)

The next oh so yummy bread is called  Yeasted Thanksgiving Corn Bread with Cranberries.. can you say Thanksgiving? 

  This bread uses the Broa dough with corn meal and the zest of half an orange (what the heck is that?)   It took me a while to figure out that my jar of orange peel (which I am not sure WHY I already had it) is the same as orange zest.... why not just call it PEEL?  What does ZEST mean anyway.... okay - back to baking...
   Now the jar says that 1 tsp of dried orange peel is the same as 1 tsp of fresh orange peel... but the recipe calls for 'the zest of an orange'.   Uh-oh... here I go again... how much is that anyway?

     wellll.... if zest = peel, then I suppose I can imagine how much that might be if the peel of an orange were dried and in a bowl in front of me :-)  So I flatten out my dough ball and sprinkle sweetened dried cranberries and my 'guess-timated amount of dried orange peel on it.... rolled it up like a jelly roll and popped it in the prepared bread pan.  Voila!  Time to rest and then pop in the oven!  Done!

Another success for the kitchen-impaired!  It is really good!  I had hoped for a new family favorite to use for Thanksgiving and I think I found it :-)  I might even attempt to take the dough and try to make individual rolls out of it...hmmmm..... getting creative in my old age!

I got side-tracked here because the men were begging for pizza again....  so I whipped up another batch of Olive Oil Dough, made some pizzas and another loaf of beautiful Olive Bread for me :-)

We tried the next whole wheat recipe - Chris Kimball's Whole Wheat.  Total thumbs up for this bread!  It is lighter than the last loaf and more family and sandwich friendly :-)   I made my husband's lunches with it all week.... he's getting noticed at work because his sandwiches are made on home-baked bread...  I'm going to have to be careful... this baking success is ruining my reputation as a non-cook!

Have you tried this book yet?  Check it out at the library to try it... and then come back here to order it from Amazon if you find you can't turn it back in :-)

btw, if you are interested in finding more family-friendly recipes... my friend, Bev, has a TON of recipes on her site - http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/kitchen.html   I particularly like the breads... (I know that is a surprise for you :-)