Book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois

I give this book 5 stars although I feel the title is misleading (not really 5 minutes a day). Otherwise this book is FANTASTIC. It is one I would like to own. I have only made the master recipe so far but it worked really well. I even did them in loaf pans instead of free form and also used it for a pan of cinnamon rolls.

I have a bread machine that I love and use often but what stops me from using it a lot is - time even though it does save time. With this book it tells you how to make up a big batch of "wet" dough and store it in your fridge for 5 to 14 days (depending on recipe) and then pull from it and make bread daily or every other day - whatever works for you.

It says 5 minutes a day because you pull the dough off the big batch you made already and shape - in 5 minutes. But the rising time is still quite long so don't think just because you pulled it out that in 40 minutes to an hour you will have fresh bread. It took my bread often 2 hours to raise to the size I wanted it.

I live in high altitude and this bread still turned out perfect. But the book really helps you trouble shoot if you are having problems and it helped me not feel so intimidated by baking bread without my bread machine. I feel the recipes of this book are going to be mainstays in Master's home. I don't doubt there will always be a tub of dough going in our fridge.

I like really light colored bread but this bread would have been fine baking it longer to give it a dark crust.

















EDIT: 1/7/09 - Amazon has this book on sale! It is normally $27.95 and they have cut it to $16.77.