In 2007, amateur baker Jeff Hertzberg and his Culinary Institute-trained partner Zoë François published Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, introducing a technique that would launch a community of online fans who regularly visit their website, BreadIn5.com. For the updated edition of their cookbook, the duo has added new recipes, a q&a section and a chapter on gluten-free baking.
Daily bread baking should be stress-free, and a batch of pre-mixed (not kneaded!) refrigerated dough that keeps for two weeks goes a long way toward that goal. This dough (flour, yeast, salt, water) yields about four loaves of basic bread. The real fun, though, begins with François and Hertzberg's new recipes, including crock-pot bread, pretzel buns and European peasant bread. Since ardent bakers can't live on bread alone, they pair their recipes with other foodstuffs, such as kabob accompanying naan, or gazpacho and Moroccan bread. With detailed directions, a review of ingredients by brand names, conversions from American to metric measurements, suggested tools, black-and-white how-to photos and color shots of mouthwatering finished products, even the inexperienced baker is guaranteed success.
While baking bread is an old-fashioned skill, the authors encourage their readers to join in the conversation on social media platforms, listing Facebook and Twitter accounts along with their website. You, too, can post a picture: "Hey, look at my baguette!" --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco