Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day: The Homemade Bread Revolution Continues

by Jeff Hertzberg, Zoë François, Mark Luinenburg (Photographer)

From the bestselling authors of the ground-breaking Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day comes a much-anticipated cookbook featuring their revolutionary approach to yeast dough in over 100 easy pizza and flatbread recipes--a perfect gift with all the toppings!With nearly half a million copies of their books in print, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François have proven that people want to bake their own bread—as long as they can do it quickly and easily. When fans hailed their pizza and flatbread recipes as the fastest in their books, Jeff and Zoe got busy creating all new recipes. With a batch of their stored dough in the fridge and a pre-heated oven or backyard grill, you can give your family what they crave…Home-made, mouth-watering pizzas, flatbreads, and sweet and savory tarts, prepared in minutes!In Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day, Jeff and Zoë show readers how to use their ingenious technique to make lightning-fast pizzas, flatbreads, and sweet and savory tarts from stored, no-knead dough. In addition to the classic flatbread doughs and pizza crusts, there are alternatives with whole grain, spelt, and gluten-free ingredients, and the authors include soups, salads, and spreads that turn flatbreads or pizza into a complete meal. In just five minutes a day of active preparation time, you can create favorites like Classic Margherita, Pita pockets, Chicago Deep Dish, White Clam Pizza, and Blush Apple Tart. Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day proves that making pizza has never been this fast or easy. So rise…to the occasion and get baking!

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Food

321 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 25, 2011

About the author

Jeff Hertzberg is a physician with 20 years of experience in health care as a practitioner, consultant, & faculty member at the University of Minnesota Medical School. His interests in baking & preventive health sparked a quest to apply the techniques of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day to healthier ingredients. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife & two daughters.

--from the author's website

http://us.macmillan.com/author/jeffhe...

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do I read cookbooks like novels? Why yes, yes I do, and they often make mighty good reads. I read Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day like a novel and was then inspired to make lots of loaves of fabulous bread. After I proceeded to eat all those loaves of fabulous bread, generally with lots of fabulous butter, I realized that the book was probably not the best book that had even been introduced to my dietary habits, and it was due back at the library anyway and the long queue of other folks interested in getting bread into their mouths as quickly as possible ensured that I wouldn't see it again anytime soon. So I bid it a fond adieu and moved along with my life...until this book came along.

Pizza is my favorite food. How do I love pizza? Let me count the ways...except that I can't count the ways because there are just too many and I might not even be able to count that high. Yet as much as I love pizza, I am terrified of making my own pizza crust. I know, I know, it's so easy, blah, blah, blah, but still, I just can't do it. It involves yeast and yeast and I have never been friends. In fact, yeast seems to have a vendetta against me ever making a successfully yeast-leavened dish...until I showed yeast who's boss thanks to Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

So pizza plus the whole five minutes a day bread concept? How can that be anything other than fan-freakin-tastically awesome?!?! And indeed, the book was great, great enough to give me hope that pizza and I might one day soon have the love affair I've always dreamed of. And not just with pizza, but with the whole flatbread family. Stuffed naan? Yes please. Corn masa flatbread? I see carnitas in my near future! And who wouldn't want to make ancient Greco-Roman flatbread with feta, honey and sesame seeds??

Anyway, too much reviewing, not enough pizza making. To the kitchen I go!

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day follows the highly popular Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The authors have turned their focus to pizza, making it not only easy for every home cook to obtain the best possible results, but also making it such a quick and painless process that you will be tempted to eat pizza everyday! It has the same format as their previous books with first a master recipe, then many interesting variations. Heavy on detailed instructions, there are just a few color photos to give you an idea of the final product.

Master Recipe Olive Oil Variation - This is an easy, reliable recipe that has replaced my standard pizza dough recipe. I do love that you can have it just sitting in the fridge waiting to be used. It makes weeknight homemade pizza a cinch.

The Ultimate Tender Neapolitan Crust - I made this recipe to use up some extra cake flour I had on hand. It definitely changed the texture of the crust though I found it pleasantly chewy rather than tender.

Sauce from Canned Tomatoes - Easy and delicious. I will make this again and again.

White Pizza with Spinach -
This was the big wow recipe of the book for me. Fabulously good pizza with not much effort. This is a pizza I crave, then eat all week once I have the ingredients in the house.

Individual Breakfast Pizza -
Fun Sunday breakfast for kids. I made it in muffin tins and it was tasty.

Its hard to argue with fresh, easy pizza. I can't imagine there are many households out there that don't need a copy of this cookbook!

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The errors are fatal to recipes. Every time one fails, I go to the website and find another correction. Ugh. So, now I just stick with the bread recipes from the original book and look to this one fir new topping ideas.

[The Flipped Page (Susan K) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual and standard recipes, mini pizzas, dessert pizzas, unusual (breakfast pizza cups with egg and bacon! Roman style sandwich, stovetop, etc). Nice photographs although not with each recipe, but in segments in the book. Will definitely borrow this from the library again. Some gluten free and whole grain recipes included.

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent looking recipes, and I can't wait to try them. As a bread maker I found the ideas sound and loved how it simplifies life. The writing style is a joy to read. Chatty, informative, casually reasoning. Just love cookbooks that aren't too "full of themselves." This is in the class of great writing.

[Jbussen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last night, I made my first artisan pizza. I chose my own toppings - artichokes, black olives, fresh mushrooms, basil leaves, and fresh mozzarella. Overall, it turned out quite well. Steph thought it tasted fairly authentic (though she may have just been saying that to be kind :) ) I've never tasted true Italian pizza so I have no baseline on determining authenticity.

When paging through the book, I saw that there weren't really many options for a tomato based sauce. It had a white sauce, bolognaise, and a couple others, including the suggestion just to add a few ingredients to crushed tomatoes for a tomato sauce. Crushed tomatoes can taste quite bland. I ended up using one that I've used in the past. In making the dough and forming the crust, I relied 100% on the book. The crust was superb, if we look past my inability to get the crust to a 1/8th thickness. I also used the book in understanding my cheese options and the amount to be applied. Most American pizza has cheese on the entire pizza but I decided to just dabble it which turned out fine.

I will update this rating as I explore more within the cookbook. Overall, I am quite happy with it.

[Monty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've tried a few recipes, but mostly have made pizza with good results. I like the idea of keeping unused dough in the frig until needed. The main problem for me is letting the refrigerated dough rest enough so I can roll/stretch it out without it shrinking back. If I continue with this method I will need to get a baking stone. If you are interested, I suggest starting with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day because it also has pizza and other flat bread recipes. Here's a link to the authors' website. http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/

[Dorena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I checked out The New Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book at the library, I decided to check out the flatbread book, too. I seriously can't wait to try the Margherita Pizza (on cover). It looks delicious! I wrote down flatbreads, pizza dough, flour and corn tortilla dough, tomato sauces, bbq sauces, white sauces and other different recipes like homemade granola, coleslaw and vanilla pastry cream. This book is loaded with recipes! After all that writing, I should have just purchased the book.

[Ami · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I would use weekly. Not only does it have easy pizza dough recipes that make it possible to bake delicious pizzas whenever you want, but the same basic recipe can be used to make pita bread and flatbread. It's fabulous. I feel this book is much stronger than the authors' first book about five minute bread, and much more useful.

[Martha Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had 3 dairy-free,egg-free, gluten-free, wheat-free and yeast-free pizza crust recipes. All of their recipes have been tested and work great. I also really liked their last book Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This very attractive book contains lots of information that will help a cook to discover the art of pizza at home. It contains a wide variety of recipes for pizza and foccacia, and will certainly inspire many imaginations.

[Ken Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn't find great pizza in my new area and decided to go it alone! Now, every time I make pizza, it gets better and better. I will never go back to store bought or local pizza. I read this book, and I'm on my way!

[Jacquie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've made many pizzas over the years with a number of dough recipes but this was insanely sticky and difficult to work with. Will NOT be using it again, so glad it's a library book because it's going back tomorrow!

[reading is my hustle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so into this way of making bread and now PIZZA CRUST. Tomatoes, pesto, olive oil, walnuts, homemade PIZZA CRUST? A triumph. Srsly.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enjoyable reading about the dough making process, but I wasn't inspired enough to try any of the recipes.

[Julie Bowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting recipes. The "5 minutes" is definitely an exaggeration. More involved.

[Dawn Mielke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cookbook has some great recipes. I made one of the pizza doughs, the roti and the brioche!! They all turned out wonderful.

[Serge Pierro · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little disappointing, considering how amazing their Artisan Bread book is - nothing overly amazing to see here. But, worth reading if you don't own the Artisan Bread book.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the idea. Love the multipurpose usage of the dough. Will keep some of it as a long term reference.