Zoë has spent the past several years writing Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and Zoë Bakes Cakes. Long before she had children or wrote books, Zoë studied art at the University of Vermont. While doing her art, she started a cookie company as a way to earn extra money, and her passion for baking was born. Zoë baked outrageous gourmet cookies, sold them from a beautiful vending cart and established a few wholesale accounts.

Eventually Zoë graduated with a degree in art. She traveled through Europe eating pastries for her honeymoon and then finally settled in Minnesota. Zoë worked in a couple of kitchens but decided she needed more formal training and headed off to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in New York. Since then Zoë has been a pastry chef at several Twin Cities' restaurants. She was doing what she loved and Rick Nelson of the Minneapolis Star Tribune even called her desserts "endlessly delicious... the best in town... appealing, inventive and flat-out gorgeous..."

Zoë began teaching others baking at a local cooking school in 1997 and eventually created the Zoë Bakes website in order to share her passion for pastry. She uses photos to show step-by-step instructions on how to create wonderful desserts at home; everything from cookies to wedding cakes.

Zoë met Jeff Hertzberg while at a children's music class with their youngest kids. They became friends and quickly realized that they shared a common obsession with baking. While Zoë was at culinary school learning the traditional methods of bread baking, Jeff was deconstructing all of those techniques at home. When she tried his method, Zoë was blown away and immediately recognized the potential and importance of what Jeff was doing. Together they came up with recipes that anyone, experienced bakers and novices, could create quickly and easily. They wrote their first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and it became a bestseller, getting rave reviews in the New York Times, Associated Press, other media all over the United States, Canada, and Europe. Jeff and Zoë wrote Healthy Bread In Five Minutes a Day, after readers from their website Artisan Bread in Five requested to see the same super-fast method adapted to healthier ingredients like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and even gluten-free ingredients.

Zoë lives in Minneapolis with her husband Graham and two sons, her best creations yet!