Author: jeff

Brioche à Tête

jeff 39 Comments

brioche-a-tete

We have finally, finally finished our Final Pass manuscript (final seems to be the recurrent theme).  That means we don’t get to look at Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day again until it’s in print.  The book won’t be on shelves until October 27, and after that, we won’t be posting on good old-fashioned brioche for a while, so I decided to reprise a great post from a year and a half ago, a post on Brioche à Tête–I’ll give you the link at the end.  There’s one nice tool to have– the brioche pans, which you can get from Amazon.

It’s also another shameless excuse to savor another great photograph from Mark Luinenburg, who did all the photos in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (above), as well as the new shots for Healthy Bread.  All you need to do is start with the brioche dough, and then go to the post on the Brioche à Tête.  It’s much, much easier than it looks (non-chefs can do it).  For something less rich, try the challah dough if you like, on page 180 of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

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Kohlrabi Greens Pesto for Grilled Pizza

jeff 27 Comments

csa-cornucopia

This year my family finally signed up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share.  Every Friday, our farmer wakes before dawn and drives to the Twin Cities and other communities to deliver the week’s bounty of organic produce.  We pick up a half-share; above is just a portion of one Friday’s haul (though this year’s drought has definitely decreased the crop).

Every week, we get whatever’s in the box.  I’d never eaten Kohlrabi before  (the bulbous thing on the right, with greens growing out of it).  When you get lots of something you’ve never eaten, there’s only one thing to do, at least at my house… make it into bread or pizza… Read More

Breakfast Pizza

jeff 66 Comments

bkfst-pizza-cover

We had friends for brunch this past Sunday, and I decided to try something I’ve been meaning to do for a while:  Breakfast Pizza.  It’s basically a pizza dough base, topped with egg, cheese, and whatever meat you like, if you’re a meat eater (we are).  In order to contain the egg, which might otherwise run off the pizza, I baked this pizza in an unfinished, plain black 12-inch cast iron pan.  The result is closely related to the Italian frittata. Read More

Almond Bear Claws

jeff 60 Comments

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A couple of months ago I got a request from one of you for a recipe for bear claws. What fun, my boys absolutely love them, as much for the appearance as for the taste. There are many styles of bear claws, but this one is easy and most of all the kids will get a kick out of it.

Thank you for the requests, we want to hear what you’d like to make with all the dough. If you have an idea for a bread post, just drop us a note in the comments. It may take us a while, but we will try our hardest to make it. Read More

Grilled flatbread, my workhorse summer bread

jeff 68 Comments

stacked-flatbreads-from-the-grill

I’ve spent a lot of time this summer talking about how easy it is to do loaf breads on the outdoor gas grill, but if truth be told, this is the bread I make every day when it’s hot.  Why?  Because it’s crazy easy and fast.  I go into the yard and do it in the morning, before the kids go off to day camp– this is the bread they take for sandwiches.  It’s very, very simple. Read More

Olive, Garlic and Fresh Herb Focaccia on the Grill!

jeff 84 Comments

grilled-foc-011

Today promises to be 95 degrees with humidity that makes my hair as wide as it is long! In other words it is WAY too HOT to bake in my kitchen. As you’ve probably noticed, Jeff and I continue to bake all summer long and most of it happens on our gas grills. With a little experimenting we’ve discovered that you can “bake” just about anything on the BBQ, click here to see some of our other favorites! For this focaccia, which is traditionally done in the home oven with lots of olive oil drizzled on top (page 150), I used a metal pie plate to keep all the oil and toppings in place. This technique is great for indoor or outside baking.

Do you Kindle? Do you know what a Kindle is? Recently Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day became available on Kindle, which is an electronic wireless reading device, that allows you to look at books on a screen. It seems like an amazing way to carry an entire library with you all the time. I’ve never seen one and I’m very curious what you think of this concept??? If you have one, do you use it for cookbooks?

To make the focaccia, Read More

Our New Book, a New Look and a Giveaway! [WINNERS WERE ANNOUNCED 6/15/09, CONTEST CLOSED]

jeff 586 Comments

hbin5-test021

As many of you know Jeff and I have spent the past year working on a new book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients
(HBin5). It is a project that started with you! Because of your questions, comments and requests for breads made with whole grains, seeds, nuts, fruits, veggies and even gluten-free ingredients, we set to work to create new recipes. We liked them so well, we decided to do another book. We’ve been playing with ways to make breads that are not only nutritious, but incredibly tasty and still fit into our busy lives. The methods will still be fast, easy and only take 5 minutes, but the results are wonderful breads made with ingredients that will keep us happy and healthy, no matter our dietary needs. Who better than a pastry chef and a doctor to write such a book?

Writing a cookbook takes a long time, not only to test and retest and then test again the recipes, but the editing and designing of the book after we write it.  Although it is nearly done we still have more work to do before it comes out this fall. HBin5 will be available in the book stores on October 27th of this year. In the mean time Amazon has posted it for pre-orders for those of you who want to avoid the mad rush at the book stores! 😉

In honor of HBin5 we’ve launched this new home page on our website. My husband Graham designed and built the site for us and Jeff’s wife Laura, who is also our copy editor, wrote much of it. We are so fortunate to have such a creative and talented team to help us. We want to thank them for all of their work!And THANK YOU for inspiring us to write our second book. As a thank you we are giving away 5 signed copies of our CURRENT book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Here is a little glimpse into our life of writing HBin5: Read More

Roasted Red Pepper Fougasse

jeff 60 Comments

cover-roasted-red-ppr-fougasse.jpg 

When interviewers ask me for my favorite bread from the book, I always give the same answer–it’s this gorgeous roasted red pepper fougasse (foo-gass)– a stuffed flatbread originating in the south of France.  It may be because of where I first ate it (perfect fall day, after a bike ride with my wife).  The rustic colors and flavors of Southern France burst out of this flatbread– carmelization of peppers highlighted by thyme, olive oil, and salt.  It’s festive, but so easy to bake from stored dough.  Read More

Pizza discussion forum

jeff 121 Comments

pizza.jpg

(photo by Mark Luinenburg)

Some of our blog readers have noticed that we have lots of summertime posts and discussions on outdoor-grilled pizza and even desserts, and pastries, but we’ve never posted on baking pizza the old-fashioned way.  As summer comes upon us, believe me, there’ll be more and more that we do outside on the gas grill (I like the Weber grills for that, available at Amazon).

One thing I have to share:  Amazon has dropped the price on the Old Stone Oven pizza stone:  Click here to order.

So before it gets hot, let’s talk about indoor-baked pizza.  Our lean doughs make great pizza bases, and nicely tolerate a pre-heated stone up to 550 degrees F.  Use lots of flour and roll it out to 1/8-inch thick and you cannot miss (be patient).  What kinds of pizzas are people making?