Hertzberg Jeff - Artisan bread in five minutes a day: the discovery that revolutionizes home baking

A RTISAN B READ

in Five Minutes a Day

The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

J EFF H ERTZBERG and Z O F RANOIS
Photography by M ARK L UINENBURG

T HOMAS D UNNE B OOKS
S T. M ARTIN S P RESS N EW Y ORK

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS .
An imprint of St. Martins Press.

ARTISAN BREAD IN FIVE MINUTES A DAY . Copyright 2007 by Jeff Hertzberg and Zo Franois. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.stmartins.com

Design by Phil Mazzone

Photography 2007 by Mark Luinenburg

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hertzberg, Jeff.

Artisan bread in five minutes a day : the discovery that revolutionizes home baking / Jeff Hertzberg and Zo Franois.1st ed.

p. cm

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36291-1

ISBN-10: 0-312-36291-9

1. Bread. I. Franois, Zo. II. Title.

TX769.H474 2007

First Edition: November 2007

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

With love to Laura, Rachel, and Julia, who fear nothing and love to bake.

J.H.

To Graham, Henri, and Charlie, my inspiration in the kitchen and in life.

Z.F.

C ookbook deals for unknown authors without TV shows are a long shot these days. On top of that, we knew bread baking, but we didnt know publishing. So we needed some luck, and some generous people to help us. Our most heartfelt thanks go to Ruth Cavin, our risk-taking editor at St. Martins Press, who heard us on the radio, liked our idea, and decided to publish us. Decisive is good. Otherwise this would still be just an eccentric family project. Lynne Rossetto Kasper took Jeffs call on her radio show, which gave us the opportunity to meet Ruth. Lynne also gave great advice and connected us with our top-notch literary agent, Jane Dystel.

We also had great friends and family to act as recipe testers. They baked endlessly and shared their criticism and praise with us. Once they started using our recipes, we understood that this would be a book for everyoneavid bakers and nonbakers alike. That was a revelation. So we owe our book to them: Allison Campbell, Alex Cohn, Ralph Cohn, Shelly Fling, Paul Gates (whose home was the first proving-ground), Ralph Gualtieri and Debora Villa (who carried our dough across international borders), Rachel Hertzberg and Julia Hertzberg (who proved that children could do our recipes), Jim and Theresa Murray, Lorraine Neal, Jennifer Sommerness, and Laura Silver. In addition to testing the breads, experienced editors Allison, Shelly, and Laura gave invaluable tips on the text itself. Thank you to Josh Manheimer, Dusti Kugler, Kelly Lainsbury, Craig Neal, and Patricia Neal for lending their marketing expertise. Graham (Zos husband) gave immeasurable moral support and created our Web site, at www.artisanbreadinfive.com. And thanks to Fran Davis for allowing us to use nearly all the contents of her home as props for our photo shoots. Also thanks to Barb Davis for all of your support and to Laura Tiffany for opening your beautiful kitchen to us.

Gratitude to Zos colleagues from the culinary world who have served as mentors and shared their advice so generously: Stephen Durfee, Thomas Gumpel, Steven Brown, Raghavan Iyer, Suvir Saran, and Andrew Zimmern.

And enormous thanks to Mark Luinenburg, whose lush and beautiful photography enhances our book so much. Photo sessions at Marks were as much fun as writing the book. Thanks for the gorgeous shots, and for helping us finish off all those carbs and coffee!

I t is so easy to have freshly baked bread when you want it with only five minutes a day of active effort. First, mix the ingredients from our recipe into a container all at once, and then let them sit for two hours. Now you are ready to shape and bake the bread, or you can refrigerate the dough and use it over the next couple of weeks. Yes, weeks! Youve prepared enough dough for many loaves. When you want fresh-baked crusty bread, take a piece of the dough from the container and shape it into a loaf. Let it rise for twenty minutes or more and then bake. Your house will smell like a bakery and your family and friends will love you for it.

E arly childhood music class may be one of the more unlikely places for co-authors to meet. I met Zo amidst toddlers, circle games, and xylophones, and while the kids played, there was time for the grownups to talk. Zo told me that she was a pastry chef and baker whod been trained at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).

What a fortuitous coincidence. I wasnt a food professional at all, but Id been tinkering for years with easy methods for making homemade bread. We chatted about the challenges of re-creating authentic baguettes without French flour (You cant? Uh, yeah, I knew that.). I told her about a recipe Id been trying to develop for years to create artisan breads at home while investing very minimal time. The secret: use pre-mixed, high-moisture stored dough. It was promising, but it needed lots of work. This was a job for a professional baker.

I knew I had to get her to try the bread to convince her that she ought to join me in this project (and maybe more important, that involvement with five-minute yeast bread wouldnt turn her into a culinary laughingstock). This woman was a baker whose food at Minneapolis restaurants had been reviewed as endlessly delicious... the best in town... appealing, inventive and flat-out gorgeous.... Maybe she had lower standards for bread than for dessert.

Luckily for me, she loved the bread, and she was willing to work on developing a book with me. And she had an idea for how to use the same approach to make pastries. Zo created rich, sweet doughs from the basic recipe and turned them into a menu of fantastic dessert breads, pastries, rolls, and even doughnuts. I couldnt have anticipated this in a million years. I was startled at how easily stored yeast dough could be adapted for dessert (although Zo knew all along that it would work).