Zoe Francois - Holiday and Celebration Bread in Five Minutes a Day: Sweet and Decadent Baking for Every Occasion

Holiday and Celebration

BREAD

in Five Minutes a Day

S WEET AND D ECADENT B AKING FOR E VERY O CCASION

Zo Franois and Jeff Hertzberg, M.D.

Photographs by Sarah Kieffer and Zo Franois

St. Martins Press New York

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To Sally, who shaped my view of the world through her love of art and great food

Z.F.

To Laura, Rachel, and Julia, the holiday bakers at my house

J.H.

Mix Enough Dough for Several Loaves and Store It in the Refrigerator

It is so easy to have freshly baked breads and yeasted pastry when you want them, even during the holidays, with only minutes of active effort for each loaf. First, mix the ingredients from any of our recipes into a container all at once, then let them sit to rise. Now you are ready to shape and bake the bread, or you can refrigerate the dough and use it over the next several daysor even weeks, if you freeze it! Each recipe makes enough dough for multiple loaves. When you want fresh-baked bread, take a piece of the dough from the container and shape it into a loaf. Let it rest and then bake. Your house will smell like a celebration, and your family and friends will love you for it.

This is the book Ive been waiting ten years to write. Ive always managed to persuade Jeff to dedicate a substantial chapter in each of our books to the pastry side of bread, but in this book we get to focus exclusively on these beautiful, beloved recipes. I love all holidays and the foods we eat to celebrate them, but its the sweets that truly move me. Growing up, I had a grandmother who baked a dozen types of cookies at Christmas and another who served the largest, fluffiest challah during Rosh Hashanah. I was gifted with many holidays to celebrate, each one with a rich tradition of foods. Later in life, my husbands family introduced me to a whole new world of flavors from Trinidad (which is a true melting pot of cuisines). I have traveled the world in search of food, pastry, and bread, and now I get to share that love on these pages. Zo

The best thing about holidays, or really any celebration, is gathering with family and community to share time and great food together. Every culture in the world has its traditional, festive holiday recipes, and we set out to find them. Some were shared by our readersone asked how to adapt her grandmothers Christmas stollenor from people we met in the most unlikely places, like the airport limo driver in Denver who told us about Moroccan meloui. There is so much love and joy connected to these breads and the memories they evoke.

This is a book devoted to the sweeter side of breadsweet-tasting, of course, but sweet for the soul, too. Weve always struck a balance in our books between our love of carbs and sweets and our desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle. We are, after all, a pastry chef and a physician, writing books about bread, so theres bound to be a push and pull. Creating a book about holiday breads that are mostly full of sugar and butter can pose a philosophical dilemma. Even Zo, a pastry chef by training, is as conscientious about what she eats and as careful to bake healthfully for her family as Jeff, whos a physician. And what weve discovered in our twelve-year collaboration comes down to this: moderation. Enjoy life, enjoy bread, enjoy sweets; just do it all in moderation, and even the most decadent treats can be part of a healthy lifestyle. Weve included recipes that are made with whole grains and alternative sweeteners, but we dont use artificial sweeteners or synthetic fats, since we dont love the way they taste. If you have specific dietary needs, you may want to consider our book The New Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which uses whole grains and focuses on a healthy list of ingredients, or for non-wheat eaters, our Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. These books include delicious, indulgent holiday breads too. Most importantly, enjoy all the bread you bake!

How did a doctor and a pastry chef set out to write seven bread books together? This astonishing, crazy adventureone that started as nothing more than a little project between friends, but has become the best-selling bread cookbook series of all timebegan in our kids music class in 2003. It was an unlikely place for co-authors to meet, but in the swirl of toddlers, musical chairs, and xylophones, there was time for the grownups to talk. Zo said that she was a pastry chef and baker whod been trained at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). What a fortuitous coincidence. Jeff wasnt a food professional at all, but hed been tinkering for years with an easy, fast method for making homemade bread. He begged her to try a secret recipe hed been developing. The secret? Mix a big batch of dough and store it in the refrigerator. It was promising, but it needed work.

Zo was skeptical. Jeff had been trained as a scientist, not as a chef. On the other hand, that might be an advantage when it came to experimenting with new approaches to homemade bread. So we did a taste testand luckily, Zo loved the results. Better yet, she was willing to develop a book with an amateur. Our approach produces fantastic homemade loaves without the enormous time investment required by the traditional artisanal method.

This had been an opportunity that was just waiting for the right moment. In 2000, Jeff had called in to Lynne Rossetto Kaspers National Public Radio show, The Splendid Table, to get advice on getting a cookbook idea into print. Lynne was supportive and helpful on the air, but more importantly, a St. Martins Press editor named Ruth Cavin, whod been listening to Lynnes show, phoned The Splendid Table and asked for a book proposal. The rest, as they say, is history, as Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day was published in 2007.

We were first-time authors, with a great idea but no track record. Worse, we were far from being celebrity chefs, which was fast becoming a requirement for cookbook success. But we knew if people got their hands on this method, they would use it. The only problem was proving that to the publisher. St. Martins gave us a small budget for photographs, which meant only eight color pictures, plus a smattering of black-and-white how-to shots. Wed have loved to have had more, but were thrilled to have any. We may have the lack of photos to thank for the birth of our website.