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Using What You Have: 5-Minute Artisan Bread

Welcome to my regular post sharing creative ways I’m making do with what we have. I often share these types of things on Instagram stories, but I know a lot of you don’t have Instagram or don’t check it regularly, so I’m transcribing some of my weekly stories into blog posts to give you inspiration and encouragement for ways you can make do and use what you have.

I used to bake bread very regularly — often multiple times a week. However, in the past few years, I hadn’t baked bread as much because I’d been finding so many great deals and markdowns on whole wheat/whole grain bread. I would just buy extra loaves when I found a good sale and we always had some in the freezer.

But recently, I hadn’t found as many good markdowns on bread and I had actually gotten to the very end of my freezer bread stash. So I first made homemade bread in the bread machine. Then, inspired by my friend, Kate, I decided to try my hand at making 5-Minute Artisan Bread.

If you’ve been around here a really long time, you just might remember years ago when I attempted to bake Artisan Bread and it flopped pretty royally. But I decided enough time had passed and I was brave enough to try again.

Well, let’s be honest, it also helped that my friend Kate posted a step-by-step video tutorial on Instagram.

Now, I need to warn you: the recipe can feel intimidating and like it’s WAY more complicated than the promised 5-Minute recipe it’s touted as. But I think someone very, very, very detail-oriented wrote the recipe and the instructions could be edited down a LOT. It might be easier to just watch Kate’s videos instead.

Here’s my first loaf. I took it out of the oven a little earlier than I should have, but it was still delicious. The next loaf (that I didn’t get a photo of), I baked longer and it was crustier. All in all, I’d recommend this recipe. Once I got the hang of it, it was really easy to do and it only takes a few ingredients!