Book Reviews

Profile picture for user Floydm
Floydm on 1 Oct 2005 at 21:16


The Fresh Loaf
Pocket Book of Bread Baking





Books are where amateur bakers get most of our information about how to bake. We are fortunate, because there are a lot of wonderful bread baking books out there, with new one's coming out each year. Whenever I get a chance to read another bread baking book, I read and review here. There is also a forum for site members to post their book reviews. If I am missing your favorite baking book, please, post something about there! The links to my reviews, each with a teeny synopsis:


Comments

at one time (also in red) that under Volume and Instant yeast, I corrected 1 1/2 teaspoons to 2 1/2 teaspoons.  All the suggestions of "cumin" have been crossed out to read caraway (in red) at least in my book.

Hi Andy,  I'm on your side of the pond now...  Shall we throw bread at the ducks?

Mini

Toast

chip c on 25 Apr 2010 at 06:36

Anyone have any thoughts on Bread by Richard Bertinet?

Hi Mini

Yummy white-sliced English pap or some authentic 100% rye?

You choose

Where are you at the moment?

Andy

I always wonder why - with a majority of Americans claiming some German heritage - not much of German cooking went into the main stream, only sauerkraut and pretzels (foods I eat probably once a year, if at all). Whenever I see a sign: "German Bakery" on a road trip through New England, I'll go in - usually to find nothing but the usual - squishy, pale loaves losing their last bit of crust (if ever there was any) in plastic bags.

I brought several boxes of Brotklee or Schabzigerklee (blue fenugreek) from Germany, it is a green powder with a very strong aroma. Yesterday I prepared Vinschgerlen dough (Vinschgauer Pairs = a South Tyrolean specialty bread) and the whole house was filled with the Brotklee smell. I do not know whether blue fenugreek is available in the US, but it's worth a try - bread made with it tastes wonderful.

 

 

I recently bought two of Bertinet's books - "Dough", his first book and "Crust" (but I didn't see "Bread" on the shelves)  Each books comes with a DVD of his kneading methods, one on sourdough and one on sweet dough and how to shape batard and a boule.  I also purchased Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread every day.  I may never be able to follow a lot of the recipes in there but it's still a good read with lots of nice pictures and the books keep me movivated.  I've only just started reading but I find that his method is quite different from conventional techniques that taught by other bakers. He doesn't "knocking back" nor does he knead his dough with the heel of his palms. With the books and posts from TFL, I'm going to have a very busy summer.   I've also signed up for a pizza dough class in Aug. and I hope I can find some good tips and recipes from TFL to prepare me for the class.

I am a newbie to this journey of bread baking.  I stumbled on KAF website, which sparkled a desire to bake easy rolls, quick breads and foolproof recipes.  This eventually opened me to the world of bread baking and more specifically artisan bread...and that was barely 3 weeks ago.  In my search for a good baking book, I came across the name of Peter Reinhart.  For most of you, that name is synonymous to that of a "sommite" (ie the expert, the summun); to me, it meant nothing, until I bought his latest book - Artisan Bread Everyday.    Beautiful....just beautiful.  Well written, delicious pictures, easy recipes (have only tried one of them so far but I can already tell that Reinhart has gone through a lot of trouble to keep his recipes easy and foolproof and his method efficiently friendly - especially for a clueless baker such as myself).  I will not stop at only one recipe, and surely, I will not stop at only this one book.  Reinhart has ignited a craze in me to bake more, to learn more, to perfect an art that I thought I could never touch as I was intimidated by the veils of words such as yeast, rising, proofing, flour scale....

Merci Reinhart for the grace of this book, for your passion for dough, and for sharing your savoir-faire to others in something so earthly as baking.

Can anyone recommend a book on artisan bread that gives formulae for large volume recipes?  I'm hoping to find something that starts with 25lb. doughs instead of the usual home kitchen recipes for 2-4lb. volumes.  Or do people just start with a small scale and multiply the volumes?  Does the yeast take particular accommodation in ramping it up?

I am surprised to not find in this listing--nor the comments--the amazing Tassajara Bread Book. In fact, it's this book that relieved me of my failures with whole wheat bread (for years I just made white flour based breads because of how dense my loaves were - no more!). It made me understand the yeast and bread process so easily, and the language with which Edward Espe Brown writes is just tantalizingly simple and carefree. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn easy but satisfying techniques that can be easily reapplied to many of your own bread recipes. Probably a bit too easy for the more experienced artisan bakers, but definitely an excellent stepping stone.

My road home on a recent vacation took me through the wheat growing area of Kansas and in particular, to Marienthal, home of Heartland Mills. Ever since, I've had a curiosity about the growing of wheat and the process of milling wheat into flour. This morning's search through Amazon turned up some professional books but nothing at my level, that of home baking enthusiast.

I'm ready to delve into something that goes a little deeper than my bread baking books but not into those pricey professional tomes. Are there such books available or am I going to have to look at the used books stores around Kansas State University?

.... by Daniel T. DiMuzio (Amazon.com listing here) is a textbook, but the chapter dealing with how to develop your own bread formulas was educational, comprehensive and understandable for an amateur like myself.  Worth the price of the book in my view.

Could the person who put this list together please please add Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf book to the list?  It is such a hugely important book amongst sourdough bakers.  It is the book so many have started their Starter from as it has a really good step-by-step recipe for it.  It's how I did mine.

The book contains hybrid & yeast recipes but has sourdoughs too.  He travels Europe and makes up recipes inspired by the ones he sees on his travels.

When he brought the book out 2004 if was the first of its kind with sourdough recipes for the home baker, it was also the first one to show you the "folding technique" which is now so widely used by other bread book writers.

azélia

"Breads of France" is one of those books that took me a while to get to. The local library didn't have a copy and the regional library system didn't have a copy in any of the associated libraries in NE Kansas. The hardcover version was originally released in 1978 and reprinted in 1984. It was also printed in paperback with the most current printing that I've heard of being in 1986. I didn't expect to find it at the local Barnes& Noble bookstore either.

So I finally went back to the library and requested a state wide search for a copy, knowing that it might take a while to go through the system. A copy was located in McPherson, KS and I began my wait. After nine weeks, the book finally arrived. It was a 1978 copy. The book is part travelogue recounting Mr Clayton's vacations in France to research material for the book and part recipes. D Leader's "Local Breads" followed this format. The recipes were gathered in different areas of France starting in Paris and heading out to the borders and coastlines. There are a surprising number of recipes that utilize rye flour.

My first reading left me puzzled at times and critical of his seeming overuse of active dry yeast. After second and third readings, I gained a better grasp of what Mr Clayton was doing and my appreciation of his work increased. So much so that I decided to try to find and buy a used copy of the book. Amazon had copies of both the hardcover and paperback but the prices were high, bordering on ridiculous when a used hardcover edition was priced at $80US and paperback editions were close behind. Fortune must have been smiling on me when, through persistent searching on the Internet, I located a paperback copy at Good Will Books for just over $9US+S&H. I was expecting a used copy that would show signs of use but instead received an essentially new copy that looked better than some "new" books I've seen in book stores. Someone had penciled in the price on the first page but that was the only detracting aspect that I found. I'll live with that.

I've come to enjoy the book and the format that Mr Clayton chose. The ingredients are listed in volume measurements but that's no surprise given the era when it was written. There weren't many "artisan" bakeries in the early to mid 1970s and even fewer home bakers that were recreating those loaves at home. After first attempting the Gallette Persane bread, I don't expect to have too much trouble with the recipes other than I never bothered to learn how to use a spreadsheet. It will take time to do the conversions and baker's math with calculator, paper, and pen. I guess I'm more of a troglodyte than a Luddite in this situation.

I'm looking forward to working on the recipes as projects for this year and will share my successes here and on my blog.

http://chaosamongstthefloursandflowers.blogspot.com/

 

I'm near Kansas City, and the Mid-Continent Library system used to have a copy of this book in one of its branches, but no more.... It was a great, interesting read.  One recipe I used several times was a raised dinner muffin-type bread that was quick to get into the oven on a moment's notice...maybe 90 minutes from start to finish.  Enjoy your treasure!

Hey guy, I am living in Viet Nam, and I am trying to practice all kind of delicious breads in order to open my own Bakery store in the near future, so thats why I love cookbook you mention here and I love some of them, but this time I am gonna try "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes" by Jeffrey Hamelman's published in 2004. But I can not find it on Amazon, so Can you show me where I can buy this book online.

Thanks you guys so much.

I found this book in the new releases section of the Platte City, MO MCPL branch and spent a few weeks reading it. I think it's worth buying to add to my collection of baking books.

Mr Forkish's approach in this book isn't simply a rehash of material from FWSY. He made the point of not treating pizza dough like bread dough very early. Mr Forkish wrote with clarity and style of his travels through Italy to get a better understanding of pizza in Italy so I found the book to be both entertaining and informative. The recipes are geared towards the home baker who has baked at least a few loaves in their time.

If you haven't got room in your house for another book, borrow a copy from your local library system and spend some time reading it. People who like a good pie will enjoy the read.

I read Trevor’s book entitled Open Crumb Mastery by Trevor J Wilson 

 http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/54193/open-crumb-mastery

 The information is unique. I’ve not seen this kind of detailed information dealing with open crumb in anyother resource. I’d say anyone that is seriously interested in rustic type breads with very open crumb would benefit greatly by reading this work. Others that I know who have read it seem to agree.

It is currently only available in PDF format. It is not intended for new bakers. Trevor advises intermediate bakers.

Dan Ayo

I have this book and it's good, but I lean more towards The Sourdough School: The Ground-Breaking Guide to Making Gut-Friendly Bread by Vanessa Kimbell and Richard Hart as a better book if you don't want to collect more titles.

SOURDOUGH by Lugg & Fjeld is really well written and has beautiful photography too. I have already made several of the breads and they all turned out well. I have about 20 SD book and this has become my go to book!

Maurizio Leo has run a website called theperfectloaf.com for many many years.  I learned a lot from his posts in the beginning days of baking bread.  He has recently published a book called “The Perfect Loaf”, no surprise.  If I were to recommend one book when you’re starting out where a lot of the process and science of bread baking is explained very well, that is the book I would recommend.

Benny

Sourdough by Science: Understanding Bread Making for Successful Baking, by Karyn Lynn Newman

If you’re looking for science, look elsewhere. Despite the title, the science in this book is minimal. The author says, for example, that rice flour will prevent dough from sticking “for some reason.” That’s hardly science. I really wanted to read about the science of baking, but this isn’t the book for it.

She mentions the “gluten proteins” in flour without naming them (glutenin and gliadin), describing how they interact to become gluten, or even how gluten networks develop with hydration. She says salt is needed for “gluten structure” without explaining why or how, or even what percentage is optimal or too much in dough. Sugar and its effects on yeast growth are not even mentioned. Nor is oil and its uses mentioned.

Nowhere does she discuss the amount of protein in various types of flour, the amount required for bread or that the protein level in American all-purpose flour varies by brand and region. Differences between hard and soft wheat are not mentioned. Her description of vital wheat gluten doesn’t explain when to use it or how much.

The scientific name of yeast is never used. Lactic acid bacteria are mentioned once, but not by the proper name. Nowhere is the symbiotic relationship between yeast and bacteria described, nor what each brings to the dough. There’s nothing on how to maintain a proper pH level in your starter.

There is nothing on the biochemistry behind fermentation, about pH levels, alcohol, CO2, or the esters created. The Maillard reaction - a crucial part of the development of the crust - isn’t mentioned. She mentions the autolyse period without explaining the science behind it.

Nowhere does she discuss the physical reasons bakers use steam in their ovens or how the crust can gelatinize. She mentions diastatic malt without but not how it works, when to use it or how much to use.

There is nothing on the different types of oven, the advantages or disadvantages of, say, convection ovens, the physics of heat conduction in different materials and how they affect baking, or different baking times required between pre-heated or cool materials. There’s nothing on using a proofing box.

Even the baking part is weak: she refers to a “proofing basket” without using the name “banneton” by which bakers know it. She does not mention other methods for holding proofing dough, like a baker’s pan or Dutch oven. She “highly recommends” using a silicon spatula or dough scraper for mixing dough without saying why (or what material the scraper should be). 

She has only one recipe using milk, but does not explain how milk and its proteins and sugars affect the loaf, whether powdered milk can work, or the difference in results using skim vs whole milk. She doesn’t explain what eggs and butter do, either, although her brioche recipe uses them. Or what amount of salt is beneficial and when it becomes a deterrent to yeast growth. This is basic stuff you can find in many other books.

At one point she suggests that a typical cup of flour weighs 120g (which is what King Arthur flour uses for conversion). But other companies suggest varying amounts, depending on brand and type. You can find figures ranging from 116g to 170g per cup online. (Emily Buehler uses 110g). But the weight of a cup can vary according to age, type, brand, humidity, milling, packing, storage, and sifting. Using cups to measure flour is very inaccurate and can significantly affect hydration.

Nothing about using bread machines and sourdough, either.

The bulk of the book is in the recipes, which are okay, but nothing you can’t already get from a dozen other, more comprehensive sourdough books. And as for science, I highly recommend Emily Buehler’s book, Bread Science (15th-anniversary edition or later). I cannot recommend Newman’s book, however.

Anyone tried A Passion for Bread by Lionel Vatinet?  His Bakery is reasonably close to where I live, and everything I've had from it has been ever so good.

I should learn more about baking and probable publish my own book :P

Has anyone read or purchased the Sue Becker's book, "The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book"? Instead of using grams for weighing and measuring, she uses milliliters? I thought that very strange.....