Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day Book Review 2009

Cookbook authors Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François of our beloved Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day are back with a whole new collection! This book focuses on loaves made with whole wheat and whole grains, all using their no-knead and fool-proof (yes, really!) technique. The results are delicious and beautiful. Take a look!

Title & Publisher: Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. Published by Thomas Dunne Books (an imprint of St. Martin's Press), 2009.

First Impressions: The gorgeous photo of that seed-studded loaf drew us in right away (and made us hungry!). This is a sturdy hardcover with a 16-page insert showing full-color photos of various recipes from the book. The recipes are printed in a clear and legible typeface, and they look easy to follow.

The Angle: This second book from Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François is geared toward folks who love their bread but also want to incorporate more whole grains and healthy ingredients into their diet. The authors work hard to dispel the idea that "whole grains" mean "boring and tasteless" with enticing recipes like Turkish Pear Coffee Bread and Wild Rice Pilaf Bread.

The Recipes: Most of the recipes in the book are slight variations on their master recipe for a whole wheat loaf. This is made with about 3/4 whole wheat flour and 1/4 all-purpose flour, and it follows their signature method of quickly mixing the dough, letting it rise, and storing it in the fridge until baking. This master recipe also uses a good dose of vital wheat gluten to help improve the bread's structure, since whole grains don't have a lot of gluten on their own.

The recipes aren't all just whole wheat, and they include a nice variety of other grains like rye, spelt, oats and barley. Seeds, diced and shredded vegetables, dried fruits, and herbs are also added for flavor, texture, and health benefits.

The book also includes an entire chapter on gluten-free breads and pastries. These recipes use the same easy 5-minute mixing method as the regular loaves and make use of ingredients like brown rice flour and xanthan gum. If you follow a gluten-free diet and have been craving a bread fix, definitely take a look at this section!

Other Stuff: The authors include nutrition notes for many of the ingredients used in their recipes. If there are specific vitamins or nutrients you've been trying to work into your diet, these notes can be a helpful guide.

Strengths and Weaknesses: All in all, this book is an approachable, friendly, and very useful guide to baking with whole grains. Even if you've never baked a loaf of bread in your life, this book gives you the tools and the confidence to pick up a packet of yeast and bake.

The recipes are inventive and inspiring, and take us way beyond the dense bricks of whole wheat our parents forced on us as kids! We made the master recipe several times, baking it as a loaf, pizza, and stuffed bread. You can see the result of our loaf above!

The constant emphasis on health and nutrition did feel a little over the top at times. Reading that garlic will help lower our cholesterol or that basil is a source for Vitamin K can be useful information if you're starting out a new diet, but personally, we're more concerned with whether or not the bread actually tastes delicious with those ingredients.

Recipes for Right Now: Cinnamon-Raisin Whole Wheat Bagels, Rosemary Flax Baguette, Apple-Barley Bread, Turkish Pear Coffee Bread, Gluten-Free Parmesan Bread Sticks, Cinnamon Crescent Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing.

Recommended? Yes, especially for folks who would like to eat more whole grains and healthy ingredients in their daily diets. This book is also a great choice for people who would love to start baking, but are nervous about working with flour and yeast!

Buy the Book: Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, $19 on Amazon.com

(Image: Amazon.com and Emma Christensen)

Comments (8)

I live in an area with a terrible dearth of good grocery stores -- I'm in DFW, and my neighborhood is a tiny little island in the middle of a bunch of industry/hotels (I'm less than a mile from the airport). This means that I have to travel 20 minutes on the freeway to the closest grocery stores (a not-so-nice Walmart, or a not-so-nice Kroger).

Neither of them have decent bakeries, but I don't have time to go the extra 20 minutes to Whole Foods every week. I've been thinking about getting back into baking my own bread, esp. since the weather's turned cold here finally.

This might be just what I need!

My mom passed on the first one to me and after like 2 tries with the starter recipe I've been making variations like these mostly, heavy on the whole wheat and other wheat flours.

It is wonderfully easy and quick. And bread for one. Which if anyone else has ever tried to do? You know it is pretty well painful usually. But with this I can easily make just a tiny bit of bread to go with dinner each night.

This new book is just as great as the first one. I pre-ordered it as soon as I heard about it, and I have not been disappointed! I have been hooked on the 100% Whole What Sandwich Bread - it's a little like challah (it has eggs and oil in it), but makes SUCH a great loaf in my Pullman Pan - even my preschooler will eat her PBJ sandwiches with it! :)

I have this book and I *love* it. Maybe even more than the first one. Definitely worth buying (both)!

The first one changed my life. Store bought bread will no longer do.

Love the first book, although I bake the loaves in my Dutch oven a la Jim Lahey.

Their first book got me back to baking bread, but I've since switched to a sort of hybrid technique.

I've switched to using sourdough starter now instead of yeast, and also bake in a casserole - I get the best ovenspring and crust that way.

I was never crazy about their formula - I thought there was way to much yeast and also found it kind of salty. I liked the flavour much better when I reduced the salt and cut way back on the yeast.

Oh, and I also had to make adjustments to the flour/water ratio to account for the Canadian AP flour I use.