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Popular authors take on flat bread and pizza

Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois have proved that convenient
bread doesn’t have to come in a plastic wrapper.

In “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” and “Healthy Bread in Five
Minutes a Day,” the authors revolutionized home baking by creating
a no-knead strategy for easy bread production. In the recently
released “Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day,” the
bakers bring a fresh perspective to one of America’s biggest
culinary trends.

“It’s one of the hottest things in the country right now, and every
convenience bakery has some kind of flatbread product. It fits in
with the pizza craze,” said Hertzberg, a Minnesota-based
physician.

Working with Francois, a pastry chef who has demonstrated the
innovative technique in classes at Battenkill Kitchen in Salem,
Hertzberg has inspired thousands of cooks to bake bread at home.
Through the books and an interactive website, the method has
created a large community of bread lovers.

“The success is really in the wetness of the dough. The bread is
really lovely if you keep the dough wet,” he said.

Hertzberg developed the method, which simplifies bread making, as a
hobby while he was in his medical residency in Minnesota. A native
of the Manhattan area, he missed the old-world style breads he grew
up eating, so he decided to attempt making his own.

“One experiment after another led to this wet dough. If you can
store a lot of dough, you can take the prep work out of making
bread,” he said.

His scientific thinking melds well with Francois’ artistry. The two
met eight years ago when their youngest kids took a music class
together. During a casual discussion, Hertzberg told Francois about
his baking hobby – and a book offer he had never pursued.

“She said I had to do it, and for me, it was a matter of convincing
her to do it with me. I didn’t want to write it down,” he
said.

The collaboration created a strong friendship and a series of
bestselling books that even have surprised master chefs for the
simple but effective approach.

The new book makes baking bread at home even easier, according to
Hertzberg.

“Pita bread and pizza are different. You don’t need that resting
time before it goes in the oven, and it doesn’t need to cool. You
can’t do that with a big loaf of bread. It becomes doable on a busy
week night,” he said.

Hertzberg said the technique for flatbreads has made it possible
for him to bake bread for his family on a daily basis, despite his
hectic schedule.

“A flatbread, like a pita, is what my kids bring in their lunch,”
he said.

Pizza also gets a lot of attention in the book.

“We detail how to do pizza well,” he said.

The authors traveled the world to get ideas, giving the recipes a
more global perspective. Turkey, Italy, France and Greece are
represented.

“In addition, there is a Middle Eastern flair in the new book,”
Hertzberg said.

Based on inquiries posted online, the authors also feature
gluten-free and whole-grain recipes.

“We want people to be able to make this stuff themselves,”
Hertzberg said.

The authors added recipes to accompany the bread, including ideas
for sauces, soups and pizza toppings.

Hertzberg hopes the book will encourage people to make pizza at
home instead of ordering out.

“We really gave people

detailed instructions about different ways you can

do pizza on the grill,” Hertzberg said. “The book is

for people who love, love pizza.”

Bread Making with Bill & Sheila

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Big boys eat into bread and butter

FOR the past 22 years, Jason Vaccari has been getting up at 1am to make sure Griffith residents buy the freshest bread possible.

But with the big two supermarkets selling loaves of bread for just $1, Mr Vaccari has urged residents to “use us or lose us” as independent bakeries fight to stay viable.

“It’s the old saying, if you don’t use us, you lose us,” he said. “We have to have Coles and Woolworths, they create employment too, but it has to be fair and you have to ask where are they making their money back when they sell that bread for $1″

Mr Vaccari, who has lived in Griffith his whole life and raised a family here, said customers get what they paid for with bread and every dollar spent in his store went back into the community.

“The $1 loaves are about 60 grams lighter than ours and you can feel the difference between them, the supermarket bread feels like it’s been frozen while ours you can tell is fresh. We would never sell a loaf of bread the next day,” he said. “Every time someone spends a dollar here it goes back to Griffith. Can the multinationals say where their dollar ends up? It wouldn’t end up in Griffith.”

With three young apprentices working under him, Mr Vaccari said he constantly worries if there will be a future for them.

“There are only a few of us (bakeries) left now,” he said. “SR Bakery and Bruno’s (Hot Bake) have all gone by the wayside and every time someone closes it’s sad.”

But Mr Vaccari said he would fight to the last breath to make sure there was a future in independent bakeries and he hopes Griffith residents will be there to support him and his workers.

“I love Griffith and we’re going to fight as hard as we can to stay here,” he said. “We’ve been here for a long time and when that $1 bread is gone we’ll still be here, and my kids will still be here.”

The National Baking Industry Association (NBIA) has launched a campaign called “Not all bread is created equal” to educate consumers about the advantages of buying from their local bakery.

“Major manufacturers ship their product hundreds of kilometres around the country, and therefore they produce bread which could be sold up to three days later,” NBIA general manager Paul McDonald said. “Consumers shouldn’t have to settle for days-old bread passing itself off as freshly baked.”

Bread Making with Bill & Sheila

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• Cinnamon Pull-apart Bread
• Make Pizza Night a Fiesta
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Bread – Old recipe making a come back

Humans ate sourdough bread in ancient times and it’s remained a traditional part of the diets in some countries and regions. Now Baltic scientists have reinvented this centuries-old technique for the needs of the food industry during a three-year long EUREKA project.

Many European supermarkets offer bread loaves from around the continent – from the French baguette through to the Italian ciabatta and Germany’s dark pumpernickel. But ironically, despite the variety, many consumers are turning back to local bakeries or even rolling up their sleeves to make their own bread at home like some of their grandparents. This new trend doesn’t surprise food scientist Professor Grazina Juodeikiene who thinks we are searching for the kind of flavour and texture often sacrificed during industrial bread making. She headed a three-year EUREKA project, which found a way to deliver taste while maintaining a long shelf life.

The Lithuanian scientist first began thinking about bread when a foreign company arrived in her country to teach local bakers how to bake bread types such as the popular baguette. “It was excellent but the next day you could play baseball with it,” she jokes. “My idea was to develop bread with what I now call the big 5: longer shelf life, better flavour, better texture, with more dietary fibre and fewer additives.”

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the project FERMFOOD is that Juodeikiene’s team has found ways to meet the needs of modern consumers by drawing on an ancient bread-making technique. As in the other Baltic countries, Lithuanians still eat sourdough bread – a tangy tasting bread that uses a natural leavening method, which some trace back to the ancient Egyptians.

Ancient art

The leavening technique was replaced in many countries by industrially processed yeast and food additives, but sourdough bread has continued to be the main staple in the Baltics and some other regions of the world. In sourdough, the secret ingredient is a “starter” or “mother” of flour and water that ferments when a lactobacillus bacteria culture is added. That starter gives the lightness to the dough. This living culture is fed and preserved for use in successive loaves and often passed down through the generations.

In Lithuania, however, for many years, bakers relied on starters developed abroad. Juodeikiene felt it was time for Lithuania to have its own mother dough, produced through carefully developed know-how. During the project FERMFOOD, food scientists and technologists at the Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania, the largest technical university in the Baltic States, gathered samples of the lactobacillus cultures from bakeries in the country. Given the importance of sourdough rye bread to the Baltic States, the researchers joined up with others in their field from Latvia and Estonia.

Winning approval to run a EUREKA project was a coup for researchers from a region with less experience of European research schemes. “It’s often very difficult for new joiner countries like Lithuania to secure funding for research and application procedures need to be simplified for small companies from villages,” says Juodeikiene.

Mould-resistant

Her three-country team analysed the different forms of cultures and explored which factors affected the sourdough bread and when it would go mouldy. Juodeikiene used cutting-edge equipment, which allowed her to test the texture of bread. Through using acoustic waves, the researchers were able to repeat their tests on the same slice of bread, since the equipment kept the slices intact. As they learnt more about the different lactic acid bacteria strains they were able to develop better effective cultures to produce more long-lasting bread they were able to test out their findings in the working bakeries.

The quest for the perfect loaf was full of painstaking research and sometimes unexpected results in the bakeries. Starters are affected by high temperatures in bakeries and the equipment used by different bakeries also affected the results. Nevertheless, some of the FERMFOOD loaves turned out to have shelf lives of three weeks and were mould-free.

Since the project finished, scientists from Kaunas University have been advising bakeries and businesses on fermentation products. The results are clear. The bakery UAB Alytaus Duona won two gold medals in 2008 and 2009 for its bread. Project partner UAB Ustukiu Malunas is now selling fermentation products commercially that were developed during FERMFOOD. In an age where people are trying to eat more healthily, sourdough bread-making is attractive. The method is ideally suitable for making rye bread – which has lower calories than many other types, as well as containing more dietary fibre since baker’s yeast does not work well as a leavening agent with rye flour.

Feeding the world

FERMFOOD results have even attracted interest from outside Europe, with Lithuania’s Japanese embassy paying a visit to Juodeikiene’s laboratory to learn more about it. Juodeikiene is not just sitting back and savouring the success of the project, however. Having improved the quality of sour dough bread, she thinks it is time to improve the grain that produces it. “The next big challenge is how we feed a growing world population,” she says. “We have no option but to intensify crop production.”

She thinks that the discoveries made in FERMFOOD can be applied to produce grain that is resistant to rotting, which would allow for intensified crop production without harming the environment. “What was so nice about FERMFOOD is how practical it was and that I see such a future in this research,” she says.

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• This bread represents WHAT?
• Pizza Hut® Announces Launch New Sandwich Concept, The P'Zolo
• My favorite bread recipes
• Cinnamon Pull-apart Bread
• Make Pizza Night a Fiesta
• DIY Pizza three ways
• Pizza Patron(R) Gives Away Free Pizza to Those That Order in Spanish
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Bread the leading culprit in Kiwis’ high sodium diet

Kiwis are being exposed to unhealthy amounts of salt, a
long-term food study has revealed.

Food manufacturers have been given a big tick for reducing the
salt they’re putting in food – but we are still eating more than is
good for us, according to the five-yearly Total Diet Study,
released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry today.

Bacon buttie lovers need to switch to unprocessed meat, fresh
tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, and perhaps skip the processed
cheese and white bread all together.

The survey’s nutrition manager David Roberts said many food
manufacturers had reduced the levels of sodium being added
products, but some still had a way to go.

Since the last survey, sodium levels the population was exposed
to had come down.

Many bread and cereal makers, for example, were adding less
sodium to their products, low salt options were available for many
products, and this was having an impact on how much salt people
were consuming.

“The products are there on the supermarket shelves. It’s whether
the consumer is ready to accept and purchase those products.”

While some manufacturers added salt for preserving food, in
other instances it was added just for taste.

Both the bread industry and the consumer had a role to play in
reducing sodium intakes, Roberts said.

The survey’s project manager Cherie Flynn said it was pleasing
to see sodium levels were coming down.

The greatest individual food contributing to sodium intake was
bread, closely followed by processed red meat and takeaways were
also a significant contributor.

The survey also showed that New Zealand had one of the safest
food supplies in the world, Flynn said.

The levels of lead New Zealanders were exposed to through their
food intake were as low now as could reasonably be achieved.

The study tested 123 commonly eaten foods for chemical residues,
contaminants and nutrient elements.

Estimated dietary exposures to the 241 agricultural compound
residues tested for were all well below their relevant acceptable
daily intakes.

Testing for mercury, methyl mercury, cadmium and arsenic also
showed New Zealanders had no cause for concern of exposure to these
contaminants through their diets.

However ESR senior scientist Richard Vannoort said it was
important to remember that all foods needed to be consumed in
moderation, as it was the dose of a product that made it toxic.

Predatory fish such as sharks for example were high in mercury -
but people needed to remember that fish could form an important
part of a healthy diet by providing protein and fatty acids.

The survey confirmed that low exposure to iodine – which is
essential for mental and physical development – continued to be a
serious public health issue for New Zealand.

Flynn said the low level had plateaued which was good news.

Roberts said the 2009 requirement for some bread to be fortified
with iodised salt could be having a positive impact, but more work
was needed to confirm how much of a difference this was making.

Iodine is currently prescribed free to pregnant and
breastfeeding women to counteract the deficient levels in the New
Zealand diet.

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Ozark village shop turns out artisanal bread crafted by hand

Nestled in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains is a small village with a special bakery: Serenity Farm Bread.

Serenity Farm Bread makes many different kinds of sourdough bread, including Country French, European Rye, Whole Wheat, Walnut Raisin, Whole Spelt and Multigrain. They are handcrafted and baked daily in a wood-fired brick oven.

Photo by Mike Maple

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A half-mile south of Leslie at the Serenity Farm Bread Pastry Shop, Memphis native Lynnwood Hage, 60, rolls out dough for palmiers. Serenity Farm Bread makes handcrafted sourdough breads baked in a wood-fired brick oven.

Photo by Mike Maple

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Sourdough loaves are baked in a brick oven at Serenity Farm Bread, founded in 1993 by Pennsylvania native David Lower.

Photo by Mike Maple

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Take U.S. 65 halfway from Little Rock to Branson, Mo., to find Serenity Farm Bread, where authentic European breads are baked fresh daily.

The autumn sunrise pierces the fog-covered Cove Creek, which runs through the small Ozark town of Leslie, Ark. — on U.S. 65 halfway between Little Rock and Branson, Mo. Bread is made in the old Farmers Bank. Built in 1907, and a bank until 1942, the bank’s old vault is where the dough and racks of bread are stored.

It’s 6 a.m., and the baker has been at work for nearly four hours. There is flour everywhere as the daily bread is mixed, kneaded and shaped. Flat rounds of focaccia bread are baked first — garlic-herb, tomato-olive, or fruit-filled

loaves, with apples, walnuts, raisins and honey.

It was 1974 when Hummelstown, Pa., native David Lower moved to Arkansas with a group of Vietnam veterans to plant trees. “When I graduated from college, there weren’t that many jobs, and we didn’t want to live in the big city,” said Lower, 60. “We all moved to Arkansas — my wife and I were the only two that stayed. The lifestyle just suited us.”

The tree planting business was not doing so well, he said, and “this doctor had built this bakery over there, and he had it only one year. One day I went in to get bread and he asked me if I knew anyone that would be interested in buying a bakery.”

That was it for Lower.

“I was the first person he told, I was looking for something, and I had some money.”

This was 1993. A labor of love was born.

Lower also speaks of preserving a lost art: “If there was so much money in making bread like this, someone else would be doing it. There’s no money in proofing bread.”

It’s 4 a.m., and they are in the bakery cutting, scaling and shaping the loaves. Lower is passionate about his craft.

“This is real French bread. Look at this, a 3-pound loaf, complete fermentation, even in the middle of the loaf.”

Just a half-mile south of Leslie is the Serenity Farm Bread Pastry Shop, serving light lunch and coffee, with a gift shop in an old house above the creek. Here you will find pastries created and baked by Memphis native Lynnwood Hage, 60, who trained in 1976 under the late Guy Pacaud and Andre Ginekis, Frenchmen who worked at La Baguette. Hage mastered the art of pastry making, moved his family to the mountains and began making pastries at Serenity Farm in 2000.

He rolls out the dough on his board, making croissants, pain au chocolat, eclairs, cream puffs, chausson aux pommes — a puff pastry with apples, tartes, palmiers and more to delight your taste buds.

It’s closing time, the big cat that lives at the highway shop is hungry, Lower is off to tend his garden, and Hage is just plain tired. Tomorrow is another day at the bakery. The town is blessed to have such a jewel.

More information

Serenity Farm ships bread anywhere. for more information contact, Serenity Farm Bread, P.O. Box 543, Leslie, AR, 72645 (870) 447-2211.

The Pastry Shop is open Wednesday through Sunday. (870) 447-2210

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Recommended Reading

• dessert
• Harnessing Potentials of Cassava Farming
• Sandwiches for manly appetites
• Bread-and-butter rules
• This bread represents WHAT?
• Pizza Hut® Announces Launch New Sandwich Concept, The P'Zolo
• My favorite bread recipes
• Cinnamon Pull-apart Bread
• Make Pizza Night a Fiesta
• DIY Pizza three ways
• Pizza Patron(R) Gives Away Free Pizza to Those That Order in Spanish
• Google+1