Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day
Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day
From the bestselling authors of the ground-breaking Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day comes a much-anticipated new cookbook featuring their revolutionary approach to yeast dough in over 100 easy pizza and flatbread recipes.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,
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With this book, it’ll be hard to NOT make pizza!,
According to the authors of this cook book, the “secret” to creating “quick” and great-tasting pizza and flatbreads is simply this: Mix up lots of dough at one time and store in the frig–you’ll gather and mix simple ingredients one time, then over the course of a week or two, you will take just a few minutes to drag the dough container out of the frig, separate a piece from the batch, roll it out, get your toppings on and get it into the oven or onto the grill. So–big decision here–before you purchase this cook book, decide if you’re willing to eat flatbread several times a week. OR, since this is such a great idea, work your thought process around to “Who best to share this windfall with?” Actually, the only thing that might hold you back is finding room in your frig for a round 5- or 6-quart container to hold your dough…….
(Of course the “five minute” claim does not include creating your toppings, preheating your oven or grill, or baking. That time’s not going to shorten up any which way you try to work it.)
Besides the recipes for large amounts of dough, there are other small batch recipes also. So, there are quite a lot of options available in the book–easily something for everyone. Plus there are all kinds of sauce recipes and suggestions/descriptions for all kinds of cheeses and toppings. And while these authors have their favorite equipment–based on their vast experience–they also list many alternatives. So, basically, you can use whatever you have at hand. So much leeway here! So much room for creativity! So much room for variation! So much room for improvisation! So many suggestions for dealing with time constraints, $$$ constraints and cooking methods! The authors make it hard for anyone to come up with an excuse to NOT make pizza and flatbreads…..
There are many thin crust pizzas with lots of variations–plenty of options for toppings. But there are not many thick-crust pizza recipes–and the recipe for my personal favorite: Chicago-style, is not really “Chicago-style”. But there is a thick-crust Sicilian-style pizza with onions that I can’t wait to try. I’m also looking forward to making the flour tortillas or Caribbean roti.
To sum up one of my personal philosophies: “Communication is the key.” These cook book authors are experts at communicating, and they carry it to the extreme in this book–and I “love” them and the book because of it. Plus, there’s even more info at their web site PizzaIn5.com. So, if you are willing to absorb all the instructions, advice and tips that they offer, it’s hard to make a mistake.
If you want to create dough the day you get your cook book, these are the simple ingredients to have on hand–of course there are many other choices, but this will get you going: Regular supermarket, unbleached all-purpose white flour; granulated yeast–doesn’t matter “active dry”, “instant”, etc.; salt–ideally Morton Kosher, because that is what was used to test the recipes (but equivalents are listed for table and coarser salts); and for some recipes: granulated or any natural sugar, olive oil or unsalted butter. How simple is that? After mixing the dough, you’ll be able to use it in 5 hours (2 hours room temperature + 3 hours in the frig) or you can store it for up to 14 days.
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|Good Concept, Good Pizza,
This book is not as life changing as the original Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. If you have that book, you probably already understand how you can apply the concepts to flatbread. I’ve used a modified version of their original bread recipe to make pizza for years (they do have a pizza recipe in that book). If you don’t have that book and love all breads, I highly recommend it.
The basic concept is the same as the original book. Make a huge batch of dough at one time, and as the dough ages it turns out to be kind of sourdoughy in flavor. No kneading, very little mixing. It’s a great way to make great tasting bread or pizza. It’s a really moist, a little hard to work with dough. You get used to working with it. When I was really doing my own bread all the time, it really did only take about 5 minutes of my time to get a loaf in the oven (the five minutes doesn’t take into account baking time).
This book is great you just want to learn how to make an easy, homemade pizza crust. It has some recipes for small batches too, if you’re not feeding a pizza army. Lots of variations and tips aimed at pizza and other flatbread like naan and pita bread.
It also has some information on sauces and toppings for pizza, but I find it weak in the respect. It’s really a dough book.
Another weakness is that it claims to have “Gluten-free” and “Whole Grain” recipes. It does have a gluten-free recipe, but I’m not fond of it. I’ve found better and easier gluten-free pizza recipes on the Internet. So, if you’re looking for specific advice on gluten-free dough, don’t go for this this one. It’s just vogue to have it thrown in as a option.
I only gave this book three stars because, while it’s a good book and it will get the job done, I think the original book offers much more and is a more complete package. While I recommend this one to pizza lovers, I recommend the other one to anyone who loves bread-like products.
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|Solid book, extensive pizza recipes,
I also own the original “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes,” so I was looking forward to seeing how they adapted it for pizza crust. I love, love pizza and am constantly in search of the perfect thin, crispy, Italian-style crust for homemade pizza.
Like the original artisan bread book, the killer feature of this book is the ease of making the dough. You literally mix five ingredients together, either by hand or using an electric mixer, let it sit for at least 2 hours, then use it regularly for up to two weeks. It just doesn’t get easier than that. (The trick is to make a very wet dough. If you haven’t made a wet dough before, you may be surprised at how sticky it really is, but you’ll get used to it quickly.)
After introductory sections on equipment, ingredients, and general tips (including helpful ones on how thick to roll out the dough for different effects), they give a series of thin crust recipes. They start with ones using unbleached flour, which I guess is supposed to be the easiest basic crust, and then move through a couple of variations culminating in using low-protein “00 flour,” like you can get from King Arthur Flour.
Like I said, I’ve been in search of a great homemade pizza crust for a long time, so I ordered the 00 flour from King Arthur on the first day. It hasn’t arrived yet, but they also give a recipe for making a low-protein flour crust using a combination of cake flour and unbleached flour. I tried that first, since I’m way beyond needing another basic unbleached flour crust recipe.
So how did this first crust turn out? It was definitely a more tender dough because of the cake flour than I’ve been used to with pizza dough, and the result was, indeed, crispier than I’ve made before. I’m encouraged. The taste was a bit flat, but I think that is because I used the dough right after the 2 hour rise. Based on my experience with the Artisan Bread book (and they point it out in this one as well), the flavor deepens over time. I’m excited to try the recipe with the 00 flour to see if I can get it even lighter and crisper. I use a lodge cast-iron pan to bake my pizzas, btw. I like the result much better than either a pizza stone or without anything under it in the oven. I also blind baked the crust for a couple of minutes on each side, something they offer as an option as well. It improves the crispness.
The authors are weak, IMHO, on tomato sauce recipes. It’s the most prevalent sauce used on pizza, and I would have preferred more discussion and variation. However, they have a few other interesting sauce recipes including a pesto recipe (the traditional one) and a unique homemade BBQ sauce recipe, which I like a lot. Later chapters in the book include recipes for flatbread, deep dish pizza, and even dessert pizzas. They also include a couple of chapters on alternative uses for the dough, like in making pita and naan. They even provide some dip recipes to go along with those breads, which is a nice bonus, and they included a random curried lentil soup recipe. It’s not what I would have expected in a pizza book, but the recipe looks fantastic, to tell you the truth. I’m definitely going to make it.
One thing I love is that they include ingredient weights in addition to measurements. Besides being more exact, weights make cooking *so much easier.* You just put the bowl on the scale and add the ingredients by weight. You don’t even need measuring cups or spoons. Love it.
I own Reinhart’s “American Pie” book, as well as sundry pastry/baking books that all include pizza crust recipes. I’m excited to have this one in my collection, and it’s the first to recommend the low-protein flour that I’ve seen. The tips are great, the pizza topping recipes are interesting and varied (except for the tomato sauce recipes!), and the ease and benefit of making dough once and using it regularly for up to two weeks cannot be overstated.
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