5 Minute Artisan Olive Oil Bread
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5-minute artisan olive oil bread is fast and easy to make, and the dough is versatile enough to be used for bread, pizza dough, cake, or even cinnamon rolls. This bread will change the way you make so many recipes!
How 5 Minute Artisan Bread Changed My Life
I thought that everyone within a 1000-mile radius of me knew about Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, By Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois, but I guess I was wrong.
When I first discovered the book a couple of years ago, I decided that everyone had to know about it. It was my go-to birthday gift for my foodie friends, so I bought about 6 copies that year alone.
The theory is pretty simple – you make a large quantity of dough, enough for about 4 loaves of bread, and leave it in your fridge.
It stays good for about 2 weeks, so when you’re ready to make a loaf, grab a hunk of dough, and you’re already past the hard part! Besides bread and baguettes, you can make pita pockets or pizza with it too.
There’s also no need for that pesky rise, punch down, knead, rise, repeat the cycle.
If I’m having a Mediterranean meal, I like to incorporate chopped kalamata olives and fresh rosemary into the dough. Of course, it’s always there for a fast pizza dinner, too.
What Can The Dough be Used For?
This five minute artisan recipe makes two types of dough: the basic and the enriched dough, which can be used to make things like a King Cake or Pizza Dough.
The enriched dough has eggs and lasts about 1 week in the fridge. If we’re having overnight guests, I make cinnamon rolls, king cake, or pecan sticky buns with it!
The basic dough is best for homemade bread and baguettes! It will make a really nice crusty bread with olive oil.
How to Store Artisan Bread With Olive Oil
This bucket is similar to what I use to both rise the dough and store it in the fridge.
You can store dough in the fridge for around 2 weeks. When you’re ready to bake the olive oil bread recipe, grab the dough and begin!
I also use this pizza stone when baking, which is perfect for both pizza and olive oil bread loaves.
5 Minute Artisan Olive Oil Bread
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 C. lukewarm water (105 degrees F.)
- 1½ Tbsp yeast or about 1½ packets
- 1½ Tbsp kosher salt
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1/4 C. extra virgin olive oil
- 6½ C. unbleached all-purpose
Instructions
- Mix the yeast, salt, sugar, and olive oil with the warm water into a big 5 or 6 qt. container.
- Mix in the flour, use a spoon or a food processor to incorporate all the flour.
- Cover (not airtight), and allow to rest on your counter for around 2 hours. It will rise and then collapse. Now, just stick it in the refrigerator,covered, until you're ready to use it. The dough will be pretty soft and sticky looking as this point.
- When you're ready to bake, grab a hunk of dough, (you determine how much, depending on what you're planning on making) add enough flour to the dough so that it's not sticky and form into a ball. I am making a basic "boule" or ball shaped loaf.
- Let it rest for about 45 min. on a pizza peel or baking sheet covered with cornmeal. The cornmeal helps the loaf slide easily off the peel and on to the stone in the oven.
- Don’t worry if it hasn’t risen as much as you think it should, it rises more in the oven.
- Heat pizza stone for 20 minute at 450*. Place an empty broiler tray on another shelf.
- Dust top of loaf with flour and slash a pattern into the top.
- Transfer loaf to pizza stone and add a cup of hot water to a pan on the rack below.
- This will make a lot of steam and give the loaf a crusty exterior. Bake for 30 minutes or until nicely browned and firm to the touch. It should sound hollow when you thump your finger on the bottom.
Looks Awesome!
Says mix everything except the water – when do you add the water ??????
Linda, I’ve amended the recipe, I should have written mix everything including the water. Thank you for letting me know.
Should the flour be packed into the measuring cup or just scooped straight out of the bag? Do you know approximately how many ounces the flour should be?
that’s a good question Cybele, with bread dough, a lot of it can be done by feel, so with this dough, especially since you’re making a big batch to store in the fridge, when you grab a hunk to make
pizza, if it’s too sticky, add some more flour to your board or cloth as you are working with it. Let it rest on the cloth, if it’s still too sticky, flour your surface and continue to roll. You will
love playing around with this dough because once you get the feel of it, you’ll be making artisan loaves, pizza dough, rolls and pita. Let me know if you have any more questions. It makes pizza night so
much fun!
I started making Jim Lahey’s no knead bread years ago and haven’t stopped! In fact, I have two bowls of rising dough sitting in front of me right now! One for bread and one for pizza/calzone. So simple, but I can’t imagine it lasting even ONE week in my fridge! haha! We love our bread!
I wonder if the Artisan bread people got their idea from him or visa versa?
Oooh, I’m another one new to this — I’ve come across 5 minute (or no-knead / next-to-no-knead) breads but not ones where you make a large batch and can store in fridge for 1-2 weeks. That’s a great idea!
This recipe makes an excellent prosciutto and assagio rolled bread.
Also, a spinach and feta with a bit of sun dried tomato rolled bread.
Oh my! I need to try that!
There is nothing better than homemade bread. For reals! I love it. I have to check out that book! When I was first married, I made our bread for 7 years. And that means that I never bought any bread otherwise! So, this book is very intriguing!
That’s pretty impressive Elaine!
This sounds like a must have recipe – to be able to pull dough out of the fridge and bake it on demand sounds almost too good to be true. Thanks for sharing this gem.
It’s pretty amazing Lucy!
i LOVE homemade bread! 5 minutes? That doesn’t seem possible! I AM going to give this a try!
Well the dough takes prep…but the premise is that if you keep it in the fridge, you can roll out pizza dough in a flash!
I love using olive oil for dough. The ideas are endless for delicious bread dishes with your dough recipe. Always worthwhile making your own bread, always so tasty.
I agree! This dough was life changing!
How long must the dough be in the fridge before using? Can it be used immediately? Ie 2 hours on bench then in fridge and 10 mins later take a batch out?
Hi Jo, actually you can use it right away (no need to refrigerate) or store it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Hope that helps!
I am single with a small frig. Can I simply cut the recipe in half or more too make one loaf? Thanks
absolutely! I’ve done that many times!
I have the AB in 5 book and make the olive oil dough frequently. According to the recipe in my book, it calls for 1/4 cup of olive oil whereas your recipe calls for 1/2 cup of olive oil? That seems like a lot of olive oil!
Can I use regular table salt or sea salt instead of kosher salt?
Hi Mikala. I’m not sure how long ago you posted this question. But you can use table salt instead of kosher salt, but you need to use a measurement by weight, not volume. Table salt is much more fine than kosher salt, so you can fit a LOT more table salt into 1.5 TBSP. Doing this will make your bread nearly inedible. Did it myself and learned the hard way. Use a digital scale and measure out 22.5 grams of table salt and you’ll be fine.
Hi Matt, I’m not a fan of table salt for a lot of reasons. Kosher is my go-to for baking and Redmond’s real salt for seasoning food. You’re correct though, one of the reasons I specify kosher salt is that it’s a lot less salty that table salt.
This bread turned out AMAZING! I HIGHLY recommend this recipe for the beginner (like me) bread maker who wants to try out bread making and also impress their friends and family. As a first-time bread maker with no previous experience, I was a little nervous to make my first batch but this recipe seemed easy enough, and sure enough I was able to make it with little to no trouble. This bread blew my and my family’s minds, and I will be sharing this recipe with everyone I know.
A couple notes: I wouldn’t call it “5 minute dough”, because even after the dough is made it still takes ~1 hr 35 minutes to prep the dough and bake the bread, but it is 100% worth it. My dough was also quite sticky and moist all the way up until after it was baked, so I would consider adding in an extra little bit of flour, but overall the sticky consistency did not harm the end product. Also I did use table salt instead of kosher and it turned out fine. Every tip like the hot cup of water in the stove and pre-heating the pizza stone were spot-on.
I am a BIG fan of this recipe; thank you to the author for sharing!
Hi, just wondering, if you don’t put the dough in the fridge, and use it right away, do you have to let the formed bread rise for another 45minutes? Also, do you need to put the stone in the oven to heat or can you skip that step? Made this recipe a few times, and it’s a hit with my family!!! So good!!
Thank you Marie,
I often make the bread straight after the first rise, and I let it rise again after I’ve formed it into a loaf.
I always like to pre-heat my stove. So glad you like it.
I love having the dough in the fridge for quick pizza, rolls or flatbreads too.
Your recipes and tips for using it look amazing to me.
I love that. Thank you Cynthia.
Do I have to have a pizza stone to make this?
Hi Brenda,
you sure don’t! While a pizza or bread stone would be ideal for getting that nice crisp crust, you can certainly bake it on a cookie sheet. Make sure you put a thin layer of corn meal on to prevent it from sticking.
Amazing Job!! Keep up the good work.
Can I use gluten free flour
Sorry! Just seeing this. I’ve never tried it with g/f flour, but if you use a cup for cup flour an not almond flour, it should work fine.
We love this recipe! It was so very extra easy to follow and the bread was delicious. We added rosemary to ours and it was divine! Thank you!!
Sorry! Just seeing this! Love the rosemary!
This recipe sounds incredible! Could I use wholemeal flour in the same quantity? Thank you
I have never tried it using just whole wheat flour. In my experience, you usually need a blend of flours if you use whole wheat/whole meal.
I love this dough for pizza! We have pizza night at least once a month and I can make it in the same time it would take to order in! (I always keep some dough in the fridge)
It doesn’t specify the type of yeast. I’ve made this twice now and it does not rise. I’ve read some other recipes that are using dry active yeast (which is what I’m using) and they say to rest for 18-24 hours. That’a a pretty important difference
Any type of yeast will do. I usually use dry active yeast, but rapid rise will do as well. I’ve made it many times and it’s never “not risen”. I even make the dough, wait until the second proof and use it immediately, as well as grabbing a hunk from the fridge. There are two reason it might not rise. First if the yeast is old and second if the water used to activate the yeast is too warm and it kills the yeast. You can even use cold water with the yeast, it’ll just take much longer to rise.
Love this! Should the dough be airtight or simply loosely covered when kept in the refrigerator?
I keep it in a large 5 gallon container, sealed. But because it’s large, the dough has room as opposed to touching the lid.
I tried it for the first time and was very impressed at how well it came out. I am baking up the last of the first batch today and once gone I am going to try a half white, half wheat recipe.
I do have a question though. Should the baked loaf be kept in the fridge and just take it out to slice or can it be left out? I ask because breads with no preservatives tend to mold very fast within a few days left on the counter.
Good question. I guess it depends on how much you use? You can also make smaller loaves and freeze one before the final rise and instead of having one large loaf, have two smaller. I’d refrigerate after a day or two. Hope this helps.
You mentioned in the beginning using eggs if you wanna make it into cinnamon rolls, can you add this in to this recipe or send a link for where this recipe is?
HI ashley, you remind me that I need to freshen up the photos, but here’s the link! https://whatagirleats.com/homemade-cinnamon-rolls/
I also use it in this King Cake recipe:https://whatagirleats.com/king-cake/
Thank you!