Jeff Hertzberg - The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

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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.

CONTENTS

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Cookbook deals for unknown authors without TV shows were a long shot when we started this adventure in 2007and they still are. 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 our first editor at Thomas Dunne Books, the late Ruth Cavin. She liked our idea and decided to publish us. Decisive is good. We are grateful to the folks at St. Martins Press who took over for Ruth and helped us make this revision an even stronger book: Peter Wolverton, Matthew Baldacci, Amelie Littell, Leah Stewart, Anne Brewer, Kymberlee Giacoppe, Nadea Mina, and Judy Hunt, who created another brilliant index. Lynne Rossetto Kasper took Jeffs call on her radio show, which gave us the opportunity to meet Ruth in the first place. Lynne also gave great advice and connected us with our top-notch literary agent, Jane Dystel, and Janes fantastic team, Miriam Goderich and Lauren Abramo.

We also had great friends and family to act as recipe testers. They baked endlessly and offered us their criticism and praise. Once they started using our recipes, we understood that this would be a book for everyoneavid bakers and non-bakers alike. That was a revelation. So we owe our book to them: Allison Campbell Jensen, Alex Cohn, Ralph Cohn, Shelly Fling and Mark Luinenburg, Leslie Held, Paul Gates (whose home was the first proving ground), Kathy Kosnoff and Lyonel Norris, Danny Sager and Brian McCarthy, Joy Estelle Summers (who baked nearly every bread in the book), Ralph Gualtieri and Debora Villa (who carried our dough across international borders), Jim and Theresa Murray, Lorraine Neal, Sally Simmons, Jennifer Sommerness, and David Van de Sande. Thank you to Jeff Lin of BustOutSolutions.com, for maintaining our website. Graham (Zos husband) gave immeasurable moral support and created our website, BreadIn5.com, and Laura Silver (Jeffs wife) made sure that Thomas Dunne Books got manuscripts that were already vetted by an experienced editor. Thanks to Brett Bannon, Leslie Bazzett, Jay, Tracey, Gavin, and Megan Berkowitz, Sarah Berkowitz, Marion and John Callahan, Fran Davis, Barb Davis, Anna and Ewart Franois, Alec Neal, Kristin Neal, Carey and Heather Neal, Craig and Patricia Neal, and Lindy Wolverton for all of their support.

Gratitude to colleagues in our baking and culinary worlds past and present: Shauna James Ahern of GlutenFreeGirl.com; Steven Brown of Tilia; Robert Dircks and Briana Falk at Gold Medal; Stephen Durfee of the Culinary Institute of America; Barbara Fenzl of Les Gourmettes Cooking School; Thomas Gumpel of Panera Bread; Bill Hanes and Kelly Olson of Red Star Yeast; Michsur0elle Gayer of The Salty Tart; Brenda Langton of Spoonriver restaurant and the Minneapolis Bread Festival; Silvana Nardone of EasyEats.com; Raghavan Iyer; Karl Benson and the team at Cooks of Crocus Hill; Peter Reinhart; Suvir Saran and Charlie Burd of American Masala; Tara Steffen of Emile Henry, and Andrew Zimmern, Dusti Kugler, and Molly Mogren of Food Works; and Dorie Greenspan.

It was a joy to work with photographer Stephen Scott Gross, whose sense of style, passion for getting the shots just right, and wicked sense of humor made the intense week of our photo shoot a total success. His creative assistant, Kayla Pieper, kept the whole operation running smoothly. Veronica Smiths talent for finding props made our breads shine. Sarah Kieffer helped us bake hundreds of beautiful loaves of bread and her humor made the time pass with ease, and the magic of Andrea Hortons makeup made us look like we were well rested for our portraits, after a very long week of no sleep.

Most of all we are thankful for the love and support of our families: Zos husband, Graham, and her two boys, Henri and Charlie, and Jeffs wife, Laura, and his girls, Rachel and Julia. Theyre our best taste testers and most honest critics.

THE SECRET

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

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 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! Each recipe makes enough dough for many 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 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.

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION: WHATS NEW?

Welcome to the Revised Edition of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day . This astonishing, crazy adventureone that started as nothing more than a little project between friends but has become one of the bestselling bread cookbooks of all time began in our kids music class in 2003. It was an unlikely place for coauthors to meet, but in the swirl of toddlers, musical chairs, and xylophones, there was time for the grown-ups to talk. Zo mentioned 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 it. Better yet, she was willing to develop a book with an amateur. Our approach produces fantastic homemade loaves without the enormous time investment required in the traditional artisanal method.

This had been an opportunity that was just waiting for the right moment. In 2000,ss X 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 important, 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.

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 that if people got their hands on this method they would use it. The only problem was proving that to the publisher. St. Martins Press 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.