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| by Jeff Hertzberg - photos by Sarah Kieffer, December 4, 2012 
Thanksgiving has come and gone too quickly yet again. We have finished eating our Thanksgiving Leftovers Torta, but we’ll continue to hold on to our reasons to stop and give thanks, especially as the holiday madness begins in earnest. We’ve come up with two great ways to celebrate the season with you–and they don’t involve turkey or long lines of shoppers. First, there is this decadent chocolate bread, laced with coffee, cardamom, and more chocolate, and second, we have a book package giveaway!
We’re back from Kansas following a terrific learning, baking, and video-shooting trip with our new sponsor, Gold Medal Flour. Many of you know that we;ve used Gold Medal flours for years. We even tested our books with them–they work beautifully and the loaves always turn out great. So we were thrilled to fly to Kansas with the Gold Medal team to visit one of their wheat growers and see their largest mill, and shoot a fantastic video.
Today our new book is finally available and we couldn’t be happier to welcome Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day
We like to make the classic Pizza Margherita, it’s the ultimate in Italian toppings. In fact, the colors resemble the Italian flag and the pizza was named for the Italian queen, Margherita, because she fell in love with it. Nothing but tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil. So pure and so tasty.
We want to invite you to visit us while we are on book tour. To find dates and cities please visit our Events page. Hope to meet you! Continue reading
photo by Mark Luinenburg
We can’t stop thinking of pizza even though we made deadline for our upcoming pizza and flatbread book (Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day, Macmillan/Th Dunne Bks Oct 2011). Even though we’re technically done, there’s still time to put a new recipe or two into the book, and you can see that there are a world of ingredients that could end up on pizza other than mozzarella and tomato (though we love that too).
We’d love some help with new recipes. All we’d need is your concept, as in “how about yak sausage, lemon rind, and Slim Jim on a pizza?” We’re not looking for full recipes here, but something imaginative, like Zoe’s pizza with a fresh cracked egg and an assortment of Tuscan goodies:
The winning concept entry will be selected by a jury (Zoe, me, and our editor at Thomas Dunne Books), will win a copy of Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and have their concept published in our pizza book this October (see “Betsy’s Seeded Oat Bread” in Healthy Bread -first names only in the book). See rules for our contests, the most important being US entries only. In addition, for this contest, the Authors reserve the right to decline to publish any recipe in the upcoming book if none meets with the jury’s approval. Also, the winning entrant agrees to grant all copyright for the winning entry to Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. Five random entrants will also receive a free copy of Healthy Bread in Five. Contest CLOSED!
Be imaginative– it doesn’t have to be a main course, so even desserts are fair game. And remember that many of the ingredients and ideas you might think of are already in our almost-finished manuscript, so being creative increases your chance of selection. Entries are due anytime before January 19, 2011. Contest CLOSED!
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| by zoe, December 13, 2010 
There is 20 inches of snow on the ground here in Minneapolis and the temperature has dipped WAY below zero. This is why we Minnesotans are such bakers, it warms up the house and makes everyone happy. Christmas Stollen is a great tradition this time of year. A sweet loaf that is studded with fruit, spiced with cardamom and a little treat of almond paste runs through it. Once it comes out of the oven we dust it with a thick layer of confectioners’ sugar to look like the snow outside. If there is any left the next day it makes amazing French toast.
To celebrate the holidays and this frigid weather we are doing a giveaway with Red Star Yeast! They are giving a package of these fabulous baking items to 6 lucky winners.
Danish dough Mixer
Two Pound Loaf Pan
An extraordinary Pizza Wheel!
Yeast and a Bread in 5 Minutes recipe booklet to get your started!
**This contest is finished!**
Happy Thanksgiving! We wish you all a wonderful holiday and lots of fresh bread at your table to share with family and friends. I’m making these soft pull apart buns for our dinner tonight. They are perfect for sopping up gravy and making little turkey sandwiches. You can do this with any of our doughs, but I used the brioche from ABin5 to get a luxurious texture and the soft crust that so many people associate with this style bun.
It will soon be American Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d re-post our Thanksgiving Cranberry Corn bread. It’s based on the Portuguese Broa style (page 82 in the book)—it’s our regular Master Recipe, but with 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour taken out and replaced with an equal amount of cornmeal.
People think of artisan-style loaves as being free-form, but our method also works beautifully in loaf pans, as you can see above (read on for instructions on how to make the cinnamon-raisin bread in Zoe’s picture). We love crusty free-form artisan loaves, but nothing says “comfort food” and kicks off the fall baking season like a luscious traditional loaf like this one.
Our friends at Red Star Yeast have offered to provide some great prize packages for a giveaway– perfect for creating loaf-pan breads. Red Star also shot a video of Zoe and me demonstrating the basic method from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day…
We first met the Red Star people in Milwaukee, while on book tour for Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day– that’s where the company has its headquarters. Red Star had found out through the bread grapevine (!) that we use their product. Both of us have used it for years– it gives consistent, excellent results, and it’s the best value in the grocery store. This fall, you’ll find bottles of Red Star yeast in the supermarket, with our pictures tied to them, in addition to a 75 cents-off coupon, and recipe links:
OK, here’s what’s in our Red-Star giveaway package, which will be awarded to six lucky entrants picked by random drawing next week. You must enter by commenting HERE, on this post (one comment only), US entries only. Don’t try to enter on the contest rules page, we won’t see that for the drawing (click here to view contest rules): Continue reading
