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Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking |  | Authors: Jeff Hertzberg MD, Zoe Francois
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Category: Book
List Price: $27.99
Buy New: $14.69
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New (48) Used (22) from $14.69
Seller: treebeardbooks
Rating:  671 reviews
Sales Rank: 484
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 242
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 0312362919
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.815
EAN: 9780312362911
ASIN: 0312362919
Publication Date: November 13, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
There’s nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread to fill a kitchen with warmth, eager appetites, and endless praise for the baker who took on such a time-consuming task. Now, you can fill your kitchen with the irresistible aromas of a French bakery every day with just five minutes of active preparation time, and Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day will show you how. Coauthors Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François prove that bread baking can be easier than a trip to the bakery. Their method is quick and simple, bringing forth scrumptious perfection in each loaf. Delectable creations will emerge straight from your own oven as warm, indulgent masterpieces that you can finally make for yourself. In exchange for a mere five minutes of your time, your breads will rival those of the finest bakers in the world. With nearly 100 recipes to put this ingenious technique to use, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day will open the eyes of any potential baker who has sworn off homemade bread as simply too much work. Crusty baguettes, mouth-watering pizzas, hearty sandwich loaves, and even buttery pastries can easily become part of your own personal menu, and this innovative book will teach you everything you need to know.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 671
 Best Bread I've Ever Made, As Good as Almost All I've Ever Eaten December 2, 2007
Louise DeSalvo (New Jersey)
613 out of 618 found this review helpful
I'm a foodie; the kind of person who will drive miles to a bakery, who will visit Italy when the ricotta is sweetest. I'm also a skeptic. So, when I bought this book, I didn't expect much. But, was I ever wrong. What I love is that the authors turn everything you know about bread baking upside down, and the result is the best bread you'll ever make at home. Easily. Simply. Whenever you want. You must, however, read the introduction to the method to succeed as well as you might -- this is not a book to begin baking from the minute you buy it. But the few minutes you invest in all the suggestions pay off mightily -- how to tell when this particular kind of bread is really ready (I used to swear by an instant read thermometer -- forget that); how to dock it; how to store it, etc. The instructions are utterly clear. I've already baked ten loaves, each magnificent, and I've only had the book for a week. All kinds of breads are represented -- French loaves, ciabbata, pita, peasant -- I could go on and on. Enough for a lifetime of pleasure. Hertzberg and Francois are geniuses.
Some notes for sourdough/dense loaf fans December 15, 2007
born every minute (Boston)
691 out of 705 found this review helpful
This is a terrific book ... I've tried the basic approach and it is great. To make it more useful (for some) I'd like to add a few notes.
The book has an unfortunate, (for me) bias towards light, fluffy breads and breads that rely on "ingredients". So...
Sourdough breads: I've been refrigerating my dough for years to increase the sourdough flavor. This books opens the door to a very simple approach to sourdough.
As the book notes, the sourdough taste increases with time in the refrigerator. So simply keep two sets of dough running ... a "dormant" set and an active set. Start by making a batch of dough. Stick it in the refrigerator and don't touch it for at least a week. After a week or so, make a second batch of dough. (I would mix in a hunk of the previously mixed, week old dough to enhance the sourdough development.) Now put this second batch away and start using the first batch ... which will have started to taste like a sourdough. When this first batch is used up, make up a brand new "dormant" batch and put it aside while you start using the batch that's been sitting in the refrigerator for the past week or so.
In this way you can keep a sourdough going forever, without any additional work. (Since you only a new batch when an old batch runs out.)
Rye and whole wheat: The technique is IDEAL for rye ... which is a gummy, no-knead but extremely delicate dough. I would certainly use much more rye than any of these recipes call for and would use the sourdough technique I mentioned above to develop flavor.
It its also ideal for whole wheat. The big problem with whole wheat is not the crust, (I'll mention a technique to bring out a crust), but that whole wheat contains bran, which, when kneaded, cuts the strands of gluten/protein. That's why 100% whole wheat is so dense. But, since you do not knead this dough, the bran does not cut the protein strands and the dough is free to rise almost as much as a white flour.
Personally, I use 50% rye and 50% whole wheat and, using the books oven technique get a great rise.
Another technique that develops a very thick crust, no matter the flour, is to bake the bread in a preheated, covered oven pot or casserole pot at 450 degrees.
By the way ... to get actual pumpernickel, forget the powders, (coffee and chocolate ... yeesh!) and just use pumpernickel flour in place of rye flour. (Pumpernickel flour is nothing more than whole grain rye flour.)
Excellent! November 28, 2007
TropicalMinnesota
332 out of 336 found this review helpful
I have many bread baking books and was skeptical that this one would be any better or different. I expected either a catch in the "5 minutes", poor quality bread, or both. I made my first batch last week and was very impressed with both the ease and taste. You can really make the dough in just a few minutes and keep it in your fridge for use over the next 2 weeks. It was wonderful to be able to pull a chunk of the dough out of the container and have delicious bread (the last was more like a big roll) in just over an hour. I could make a loaf when I got home from work and serve it for dinner. There are many recipes included, but it also gave me a much more relaxed attitude toward the bread and I found myself making up my own additions by the time I was forming my second batch. I showed the book to a friend and rather than copy a few of the recipes, she decided to order the book herself because she said that everything looked good and it looked like stuff she would really make. Not many cookbooks earn that comment.
The book frequently calls for a pizza peel and baking stone. A set of the peel (or a suitable cutting board), stone (or an unglazed ceramic tile from Home Depot) and this book would make a great gift. In fact, I thought that I could cross several people off of my shopping list by buying the set or just the books for all. Unfortunately, it is already out of stock. Looks like I am not the only one who is impressed by it. I can't even give my book away and wait for a new copy because I spilled olive oil on it while making the sun dried tomato and Parmesan bread. By the way, it was delicious!
This is a great book for all cooking experience levels. The recipes are easy and the results impressive.
Perfect Bread---With Ease! January 9, 2008
H. Grove (Maryland, USA)
63 out of 63 found this review helpful
The concept around which Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day revolves is that with the right method, you can make quick, easy bread that mimics the fancy, crusty loaves you find in restaurants and bakeries. There's no kneading involved. The fanciest piece of equipment you might need is a baking stone for optimal results, but even that you can do without. There's no proofing of yeast, no multiple long rise times on baking day. You use very few dishes, so there isn't much to clean.
The secret? A wet dough that ages over time in the refrigerator. One batch makes a handful of loaves, and will last happily for more than a week, so you can just lop some off and make bread whenever you want during that time. All you'll need is a little time for the bread to rest and bake, and you have lovely homemade bread whenever you want it. If that isn't enough, as the dough ages it takes on a sourdough characteristic, giving it additional flavor.
We found the recipes quick and easy. The dough was crusty as advertised. It had a lovely crumb. It had tons of flavor. And most importantly, it really did take only a few minutes of work.
My only disappointment is that the method isn't quite as easy and simple when it comes to making whole grain breads. You definitely have to adjust things a bit, and it'll take a little time to get the hang of making sure the dough is wet enough. Also, whole grains don't lend themselves to those perfect crackling crusts, so you'll have to live without that.
This is a delightful baking method that sets tradition on its ear and produces wonderful bread with little effort. Using Hertzberg and Francois's method, you'll be able to make fresh, homemade bread even around a busy working schedule.
They Love It January 19, 2008
J. Eno
58 out of 58 found this review helpful
As a resident of the less urban areas of the United States, I have often been faced with the grim reality that good bread is hard to find. Even in enormous supermarket bread aisles, one look at arm-long ingredient lists filled with unpronounceable chemicals is enough to prove the unfortunate difficulty of obtaining a healthy, cheap instance of this traditional food staple. The obvious solution, then is to make bread at home, with good ingredients purchased cheaply from the very store that does not offer the finished product. The problem with this approach, however, is that real bread is not just considered to be food: it is an art form.
Thus the familiar term "artisan bread," a phrase meant to capture the aesthetic finery of good bread, the skilled labor necessary to create it, and the sale price required to compensate for it. Buying bread then, is more like going to a gallery than to a market. And so even we who do not have ready access to real "artisan bread," who wish to produce the stuff on our own, are at the mercy of our only easy resource: books on how to make this "artisan bread." The problem is that these books are all written by bakers, artists of bread. I have purchased a few of these myself (The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, Artisan Baking), but the intense involvement which these methods require is more than I am interested in. I have no desire to bake world-class breads, or even really good ones; I just want something to eat(!) and enjoy and give to lots of other people who also don't get to experience real bread of any quality most of the time.
The first small loaves I baked using the master formula came out of the oven crackling; when they cooled and I invited my family to try them (the same people who have witnessed some very un-enviable bread attempts in the past), I was overjoyed to see that they kept coming back for more! It is without a doubt the best bread I have ever baked (although I haven't baked much), and it certainly meets and surpasses all my requirements for a quick, easy method of making decent "good bread" at home.
If all you want to do is eat inexpensive, decent bread, and do so easily and quickly (from dough to delicious in an hour and a half), then this is the book you should buy. If you have a desire to learn the intricate art of bread, then get the other books--you'll probably be making better bread after a time. But this is not a book for artists, or even hobbyists--it's a book for the rest of us, who just want to eat...bread.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 671
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