Thrifty Thursday :: Artisan Bread

Since my last Thrifty Thursday post was on my regular bread, I thought I’d stick with the theme and let you in on how easy and cheap Artisan Bread is to make.

My sister got me the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, for my birthday a couple years ago. She knew I was doing a lot of bread baking and thought it would be a good addition to my baking skills. I wasn’t sure how I’d like it because I had never made any fancy bread before. After trying it out a couple times, my family and I decided we really liked it. We love having it when we have soup, lasagna, spaghetti, and sometimes just to snack on.

The book is great because it’s filled with recipes and tips on how to make artisan bread, flat breads, enriched breads and pastries. They also have a website that is full of even more great tips.

I was surprised to see that they feature the Master Recipe right on their website, so if you want to try it out before you get the book you can check it out there. That is the recipe I’m going to focus on, since it is what I have worked with the most.

The Master Recipe only has four ingredients.

Water
Yeast
Salt
Flour

It seems pretty basic and it is. You mix these together. Let it rise and stick it in the fridge for up to two weeks. The second rise and bake take some more time, but very little work.

These basic ingredients make this a very cheap, but tasty bread. Each recipe will make four 1 pound loaves. The total cost is $1.20, which means it is only about $0.30 per loaf! When I was looking in the bakery section at my grocery store the price of their artisan bread was $2.00 for a loaf that size. This definitely makes it worth your money.

With this master recipe you can make various recipes. I have made an herb variation, pizza crust, pita, caramel rolls, and monkey bread. These have all been really good. And since it’s so easy to make the dough and keep it, it is great for any average housewife.