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| Gluten-free Artisan Bread |
One of the pleasures of this gig is getting to see some neat cookbooks. Danielle Johnson, Senior Publicist At BC’s Raincoast Books very kindly sent me several titles recently, and I am looking forward to perusing, and sharing thoughts about, them with readers in the coming months.
The one that first caught my eye was “Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day” by Jeff Hertzberg (an MD), and Zoe Francois (a Pastry Chef). It seems more and more people say they can’t handle wheat or gluten, but their options for truly great fresh, crusty bread appear pretty limited. I’d also like guests at my table to be able to indulge in one of life’s pleasures, without concern
The front cover attracted me because of the beautiful loaves featured. The resident baker was instantly sceptical saying something to the effect “there is no way those are gluten-free”. After an expensive trip to the health food store to acquire the various ingredients (which are going to see us thru about ten loaves) the yeast is doing its magic and the dough is rising.
The aforementioned baker is an adept of the Jim Lahey, ‘no-knead’, method of making bread popularised in a seminal New York Times Article. She learned the techniques from Marc Albanese at Pane Fresco when he himself was still actually baking his fantastic breads in the Burlington Store. The method is close to foolproof and we immediately ditched our bread machine as our ‘no-knead’ bread proved far superior in taste and texture, and was not appreciably more work. (We also reduced the frequency of visits to Pane Fresco, except for a few items they excelled in, but which were beyond us!)
Hertzberg and Francois previously authored “Healthy Bread”, “Artisan Bread,” “the New Artisan Bread” and “Artisan Pizza and Flatbread” (all “in 5-minutes a day”), none of which I was previously familiar with. Point is they seem to know what they are about: The family baker found plenty to give her comfort as she read through the key bits before acknowledging gluten-free could well work, and heading out on her shopping expedition.
The results of the first experiment (a standard white made following the basic recipe) won’t be in till tomorrow and, after that is mastered, there are plenty of great-sounding recipes to try. (Pumpernickel, date and walnut for one.) I’m encouraged too, enough to share the details with readers who might wish to acquire the book without delay. I will report later on how things turned out and also point readers to a coming cookbook giveaway (including this one), in the winter edition of BCity Magazine, where I also get to write about food and drink.
For more pictures. click here.
To see all past columns please see (and “like”) the Food for Thought Archives
Alex (Alex can be reached at fft@thehamiltonian.info or on twitter @AlexBielak)
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