Clean Eating Book Review: Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day Book (& bread) Review

Book Review: 

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day... by Jeff Hertzberg MD and Zoe Francois

This isn't specifically a 'clean eating' book, but the recipes are for whole grain cooking, so I'm using it for adding some yummy breads to our clean eating.

After making this bread, we all thought it made exquisite AWESOME pizza crust, but it was really just too heavy for 'bread bread".  So, I had Squatch make The "Five minutes a Day" bread last week, using the basic recipe in this book. It was a flop.  I'm not sure if it was the recipe, or the boy making it.  Maybe he's doing it on purpose so I'll quit asking him to bake bread?  This one was easy, though... NO KNEADING!!!

Then I tried again myself, using whole wheat white flour and a little unbleached flour (even though it wasn't whole grain, I have to see if I can get it to work in any form before I keep trying to tweak it to whole grain all the way) and it was better.  I'm having great luck making SMALL muffin sized breads.  These were awesome and a fantastic blend of soft int he middle, crunchy on the outside, exactly how my husband likes his bread.  It was very much like the texture of the baguettes at Panera bread.

I almost tasted like an English Muffin to me and the kids... but that's actually a good thing, we love English Muffins.  Hmmm... Speaking of which, maybe I'll try that.  Right now I have a loaf in the oven trying for a more focaccia loaf, flatter and round for amking a yummy sandiwch.

My husband ate both of these loaves plain before I could get a chance to make a sandwich, so i guess it went well.  My oven is apparently 50 degrees too hot.  But, yay!!  Bread!

More on the book... I borrowed this from my library after reading it in the store... and now I KNOW I want it!  I'm ordering it this weekend when I get paid, because it is a wealth of information and has turned bread baking into such a quick and easy thing.  I am also going to go buy a pizza/bread baking stone as soon as I can as well as an oven thermometer.  I know our oven is 'extra hot' and I always have to adjust times.  I thinkt hat was our biggest failure when I tried this recipe the first time.

It took me no more than ten minutes to mix up the original batch and seriously, scoop out some dough each day for fresh, hot home baked bread?  Yes, please!  And all the varieties of bread... yep!  My husband is a BIG bread lover, and if I can find a way to make a variety of breads that are clean and healthy, I'll get big points!:)

Another thing this book has going for it, in my opinion is that everything is simple, easy to read and there are plenty of variations with a base recipe.  As you may have noticed, I love variety and I really like that about this book.  The photos and directions are easy to understand, and I can't wait for my own copy of it to get here!  Fabulous, must have book for Eating Clean in our bread loving house!!  Now, I just need to make sure to have plenty of water and salad before my meal that includes the bread, since I know I'm a bread lover too:)

Give it a preview and see if they have it at your local library.  I think you'll love it, especially if you are looking for quick and EASY!