Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, Cookbook of the Day

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Feb 21st 2008 @ 10:32AM

cover of artisan bread in five minutes a day

A year ago, I was totally swept along by the No-Knead bread tide. I thought it was the best thing ever and would often sing the praises of the technique, because for the first time in my life, I was able to make good bread easily. The only problem with it was that you had to be careful of the timing of when you started the bread, because of the specific waiting periods required.

Luckily for me, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François have solved the timing problem by devising an even easier way of making good, fresh bread at home and they've written a cookbook called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day devoted to their method. They developed a wet dough that can be kept in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. What you do is simply cut off a chunk of dough and bake it off each day as needed. That way one night you can bake up a larger loaf if you're having guests for dinner and the next day, you can just bake off the little bit you need for your afternoon sandwich.

In addition to the standard loaf, Zoë has created an assortment of recipes that allow you to take the basic bread dough and turn it into all sorts of breads from sweet rolls to seeded loaves. The book is written clearly and the recipes are easy to follow. There aren't a ton of pictures, but what are there are gorgeous.

I've personally made several batches of the dough and it's turned out perfectly each time. I even let a batch of dough hang out in my fridge for a full two weeks, to determine if it really was still usable after all that time and discovered that the bread that baked up from that older dough was wonderful, with a distinct sour taste that reminded me of the sourdough I occasionally buy from a local bakery.

One final note about this book is that it is accompanied by an informative website that includes questions from readers and answers from the authors, a section devoted to clearing up an errors in the book and videos of Jeff and Zoe in baking action.

Source

Filed Under: Cookbook Spotlight, Food Politics, Books, Methods
Tags: artisan bread, ArtisanBread, baking, bread, cookbook of the day, five minutes a day, Jeff Hertzberg, Zoe Francois

Chew on This

Royal Wedding Cake Details Revealed! - YumSugar

Make Your Own Pop Tarts - CHOW
Denny's Introduces a Maple Bacon Sundae - Eater
Whole Foods Opening Bars in Stores - USA Today
Rules Of Bar Etiquette -- For The Bartender - HuffPost Food

Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-21-2008 @11:44AM Kitt said... Yes! This is a terrific cookbook. It will totally change the way you think about making bread (which previously in my case was, "heck no, I'm not messing with all that kneading and rising and punching down and whatnot").

I first mixed up the sweet dough and made:

Caramel pecan rolls:
http://kittbo.blogspot.com/2008/01/caramel-pecan-rolls.html

Then chocolate-almond challah:
http://kittbo.blogspot.com/2008/01/challah-with-chocolate-almond-filling.html

This week I tried the basic dough recipe, but instead of using a pizza stone and pizza peel (I have neither), I baked it in a dutch oven like Jim Lahey's no-knead bread.

Delicious!
http://kittbo.blogspot.com/2008/02/different-kind-of-no-knead-bread.html

Yesterday I added parmesan and baked it in a terrine, and that was even better.

Thumbs up for this book!
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

2-26-2008 @5:47PM Jeff Hertzberg said... Marisa:

Thanks for the kind words (I'm Jeff Hertzberg, one of the co-authors). Kitt's comment above is just goes to show the fun we're having with this, because everyone who gets the book seems to run with it and invent a million variations on their own. Thanks to the web, we hear about this stuff. If anyone has questions or comments, head over to our website at www.artisanbreadinfive.com, and post your note to any of the "Comments" fields. Zoe or I usually put your posting up, and reply to it, within a few hours.

Jeff Hertzberg www.artisanbreadinfive.com
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

2-22-2008 @4:01AM Nicole said... Ya, I think this is a nice cookbook. It is good for those people who do not have enough time to attend the cook training. I am a good example, I always bake my bread with my old friend -- Book 'Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads': http://dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=85575&ru=279 , it seems that I am talented at baking, LoL, now I really can bake a lot of beautiful and delicious bread. Thumbs up for this book! I think I can try some new methods from now on!
Reply

Vote upVote downReport

2-24-2008 @3:41PM peggy munson said... how do you get the cookbook? Amazon doesn't seem to have it. we have made the basic recipe and love it.

pmunson@fuse.net
Reply