Resources
Book Descriptions
Unless otherwise noted, these book descriptions came from Amazon.com.
An instructive, yet sophisticated guide on the process of bread-baking includes step-by-step technique photographs for beginners, as well as intriguing new recipes for professionals of the trade. Tour.
Description from Booklist
Though the inspiration for most contemporary food trends can arise on either coast, the yen for bread baking appears to be centered in the Northeast. So it should come as no surprise that a New York City bakery owner who studied "loaf art" in France now debuts in print. Like its culinary cousin, pastrymaking, creating bread is a highly personalized activity, with legions of bakers agreeing to disagree about the use of certain starters, the right amount of kneading, the appropriate temperatures, and so on. One can always temper Scherber and Dupree's idiosyncrasies with advice from others, but the results of their more than 40 recipes are well above average. Barbara Jacobs
Whether or not you watched Baking with Julia, the 39-show television series, if you are interested in baking you'll love the book. This handsome volume is even more crammed with information and guidance than the half-hour shows. It covers everything from basic breads to elegant cakes, including recipes for sweets and savories, from traditional pita bread to trendy tiramisu, and from cookies with just three ingredients to a wedding cake that takes a week to make. Many of these recipes are usefully illustrated. Dorie Greenspan, who authored this work, captures Julia's brisk, clear, no-nonsense voice perfectly. Adding masterful clarity to recipes that come from 27 chefs, she makes Baking with Julia an instant classic.
Television cooking shows are occasionally moderately entertaining to watch, but as sources for usable recipes and good cooking ideas, they are hit or miss at best. Cookbooks based on cooking shows are even less likely to be useful in the kitchen. One shining exception is Julia Child's "Master Chef" series. One of the best cooking shows ever produced, it also yielded some wonderful cookbooks, including Cooking With Master Chefs. The latest is Baking With Julia, which features the creations of 26 top bakers. All are artists with flour, eggs, butter, and the other ingredients of their craft. Writer Dorie Greenspan is a master at her craft as well. The paste for éclairs, she writes, is transformed from "ordinary-looking batter" into "a puffed pastry that appears to be threatening flight." It's all definitely good enough to eat.
Description from Booklist
The most celebrated U.S. television chef weighs in with a companion to her upcoming PBS series. This time, Child guides her admiring pupils through the breadth of contemporary American baking. Octogenarian Julia herself does little cooking, but her presence validates the work of the bakers young and old whose skills she showcases. Dorie Greenspan gets credit for authorship of this endlessly tempting, lavishly illustrated volume destined to raise temperatures in the nation's kitchens. Beginning with familiar yeast breads, the book advances through cakes, cookies, pitas, and pizzas to croissants, matzos, and, yes, bagels. Techniques range from Beatrice Ojakangas' familiar Scandinavian loaves to Martha Stewart's complex, grandly embellished wedding cake. In a bow to technological advances, some of the recipes are designed for bread machines. Since this book is meant to accompany the video series, its illustrations serve as portraits of final products, not as the step-by-step technical guides that made Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking a classic. Despite her limited presence in the book, Baking with Julia perfectly reflects the queen of U.S. cuisine's passion to teach us an appreciation for good food. Mark Knoblauch
Baking Bread: Old and New Traditions
In the tradition of its phenomenally successful companion volume Bread, this practical guide to baking features over 100 easy-to-follow recipes for every taste and occasion. Country breads, picnic breads, dinner rolls, brioches, waffles, holiday breads--this generous collection explores the full range of delicious bread possibilities. Full-color photographs.
From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by PH , February 1, 1997
This book offers a thorough education in bread baking with illustrations of techniques to prepare the dough (kneading, mixing, sponge method), how to use bread machines effectively, kinds of leavening measures, an explanation of grains and more. But it's the recipes that are the heart and soul (or stomach?) of the book. It contains over 100 bread recipes and variations, as well as 60 recipes for spreads and glazes: European breads, such as Peasant Bread with Figs and Pine Nuts; American breads, such as Pecan Wheat-Berry Bread; elegant dinner rolls and muffins for Sunday brunch; brochette, appetizer and celebration breads. Illustrated with photos so detailed you can almost smell the scent of warm bread, this book makes the jailer's sentence of "bread and water" something to look forward to.
The Baker’s Trade: A Recipe for Creating the Successful Small Bakery
This is the first book ever to explain everything needed to work through the thicket of rules, procedures, and tasks for starting and running a prosperous retail or wholesale bakery.
It gets going with "a day at the bakery," then takes up baking and business skills, start-up costs, sources of financing, legal and tax matters, local planning and health regulations, retail and kitchen layout and design, adding a cafe or deli, getting supplies at the best prices, the product list, pricing and costs, marketing and public relations, maintenance and clean-up, employees, expansion and diversification, common business problems, and the business plan.
Checklists, profiles of successful bakeries, plus an appendix of further reading, baking/culinary schools, professional associations, a model personnel manual, and a list of software supplement the text.
About the Author
Zachary Schat is a fifth-generation baker. After graduating from the University of California he bought a struggling shop his father had recently acquired. In five years he tripled daily gross sales to $1,500; then he opened a branch across town. Besides his own start-up experience, he brings 150 years of his family's baking background to the book.
Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads
In the twenty years since the publication of The Complete Book of Breads new equipment and products have revolutionized the kitchen. With a food processor, or a heavy-duty mixer equipped with a dough hook, a home-baked loaf can be produced in a fraction of the time previously required, and with little effort as well. The easy availability of fast-acting yeasts, bread flora, and other specialty products has also broadened the possibilities.
These changes were part of the inspiration for the much-needed New Complete Book of Breads; 200 of the recipes from the original book appear here, all revised with the modern cook, modern equipment, and marvelous products in mind. Beyond the updated recipes, master baker Bernard Clayton also includes 100 new recipes, which are the result of ongoing research, further travels, and the generosity of fans and friends. For each recipe, Clayton also gives instructions for using either the mixer or the food processor and takes into account the shorter time needed for fast-acting yeasts.
The New Complete Book of Breads offers an incredible range of variety, nearly, enough to supply a different kind of bread for a year of baking days. Here are wheat breads -- Honey-Lemon, Walnut, Buttermilk; a variety of sourdough breads; all manner of corn breads; breads flavored with herbs and spices or enriched with cheeses; and all the favorite "little" breads -- Kaiser Rolls, Mother's Biscuits, English Muffins, and Popovers. For the baker who observes the seasons and the holidays with a fresh loaf, there are Challah, Barm Brack, and Panettone; there are also delectable breads rich with nuts and fruits, such as Cherry-Pecan, Italian Olive, and Honey-Pineapple.
Here is the ultimate bread book, an indispensable reference for professional bakers and home cooks alike.
The Best Bread Ever–Great Homemade Bread Using Your Food Processor
According to Charles Van Over, a food processor, an instant-read thermometer, and a baking stone are the only equipment essential to making the best bread you will ever eat. You also have to be willing to make a leap of faith, following his precise method meticulously: the bread dough must be made in a food processor that is run for exactly 45 seconds, and you have to use flour and water that produce dough with a temperature of 75-80° Fahrenheit. Check the book for the other six rules of Van Over's system and see if you agree that the results are stunningly good.
To assure clarity, the recipes provide U.S. measures by volume and weight as well as by metric measures. This versatility makes the book transportable around the globe, though its recipes are designed to work with American flour and other ingredients. The type is large and easy-to-read, which is most helpful when following the many steps involved in making bread. Color photos provide inspiration, while progressive shots in black and white demonstrate important steps in some of the recipes. You'll find directions for making bagels, sourdough, and breads enriched with milk, butter, or eggs, including Alsatian Kugelhopf and Cheddar Pepper Brioche with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, as well as Van Over's baguette, Semolina Bread, and a Presentation Loaf that is specially inscribed or decorated. If you have ever made bread with poor results, The Best Bread Ever will help you break through to the results you dream of.
When Charlie van Over makes his bread, he breaks all the rules of classic bread baking. He doesn't proof the yeast. He uses cold water instead of warm. He mixes the dough in a food processor for forty-five seconds instead of kneading it by hand. He lets the dough rise in a cool place. The results? Perfect crusty-on-the-outside baguettes with texture, taste, and aroma. Light brioche with buttery crisp crusts and fluffy, saffron interiors. Chewy bagels with hardy, smooth crusts. A rich walnut loaf studded with nuts and scented with the full flavor of whole wheat. A homey cherry babka with a crunchy cinnamon sugar topping. How is this possible?
Like many inventors, Charlie came across his technique by accident. At a party for Carl Sontheimer, founder of Cuisinart, the company that first introduced the food processor to American home cooks, it was suggested to Charlie that he mix his dough in a food processor. Thus began several years of experimentation and, finally, a foolproof method for making perfect bread every time.
Now you can re-create Charlie van Over's great bread for yourself. And what's even more amazing is that Charlie's is a hands-off, rather than a hands-on, method. Once the dough is mixed in the food processor, there's no kneading. Just place it in a bowl at room temperature to allow the flavors to develop. Have to run out suddenly for a few hours? No problem. Just put the dough in the refrigerator until you're ready. You won't have to keep baker's hours or become a professional to make wonderful bread at home.
Once you've mastered the basic technique, the possibilities are endless. Fougasse, Ciabatta, Semolina Bread, pizza, Danish Twists, and even sourdough Olive Rosemary Bread and Idaho Potato Rolls. Have a favorite bread? Charlie even explains how to convert any recipe to The Best Bread Ever method.
The Best Bread Ever provides easy-to-follow instructions for more than sixty breads, step-by-step photographs, helpful advice for troubleshooting your food processor, rich color photographs of Charlie's bread, and recipes for using bread in bread puddings, soups, and other dishes. As Jacques Pépin says in his foreword, "Get your ingredients and equipment together and follow Charlie's remarkable method. You will never be without good bread again."
Boulangerie: The Craft and Culture of Baking in France
In France, the boulangerie--the bakery--along with the village church, has always been at the heart of the community. This beautiful book captures the essence of this centuries-old tradition and provides readers with 36 authentic recipes for classic breads and pastries. 30 color photos.
Bread: 150 Traditional Recipes From Around the World
More than just a bread cookbook, this is a photographic journey to the world's culinary regions--from the naan and chipatis of India to the soda farls of Ireland to the brioche of France and the sourdough of America. Features over 150 recipes, each accompanied by a photo of the finished bread.
An innovative cookbook that revitalizes the ancient tradition of bread baking, using only the finest organic nuts, fruits, and stone-ground grains. 88 fool-proof recipes, including Lemon Anise Tea Loaf, Country-Style Health Loaf, and San Francisco Sourdough. Full-color photos.
Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bakers
The author of the highly successful "Brother Juniper's Bread Book" combines traditional methods and whole grains with sometimes wild creativity to create breads that are delicious beyond belief. With advice on using food processors and bread machines, the book shows that making world-class bread needn't be difficult or daunting.
Practical Baking covers the entire field of practical bakery foods production and pastry making, bringing students up to speed on the latest bakery developments, and emphasizing the production of international yeast-raised bakery products and new practices in speed-up production.
Contents: Ingredients; Basic Operations in Bread Making; Egg, French & Italian Bread; Hard & Soft Rolls; Puff Pastries; Cake Mixing Methods; Icings & Toppings, and more. Contains fully-tested recipes and step-by-step illustrations. 552 line drawings, 364 tables, 8 halftones. Appendix. Index. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Professional baker George Greenstein reveals what the home chef has suspected all along--professional bakers get great results because they use dozens of little tricks that make the difference between ordinary loaves of bread and spectacular ones. Here are secrets, tips, techniques, and instructions for everything from yeast breads to whole grain loaves to biscuits to croissants. Illustrated.
Special and Decorative Breads, Volume I
This is an invaluable guide to the artisan style of bread baking in France. Includes techniques for the beginner and experienced professional. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
Special and Decorative Breads, Volume II
This is an invaluable guide to the artisan style of bread baking in France. Includes techniques for the beginner and experienced professional. --This text refers to the hardcover edition of this title
The long and short of it is you could pick up a copy of The Village Baker by Joe Ortiz, start at the beginning, bake your way to the last page, and open your own village bakery. A California regional baker since 1978 (Joe Ortiz bakes breads, and his wife bakes pastries at Gayle's Bakery in Capitola, California), Ortiz brings his years of personal experience and his endless travels through Europe to the one subject he holds so dear: good bread. And by good bread, he means the best of what France, Germany, and Italy have to offer, as well as notable contributions from great American bakers working in the traditional, village-baker style: dense, crusty, flavorful loaves of bread that support life in and of themselves. Ortiz holds out the promise that this can actually be accomplished in the home kitchen--with the highest standards.
Ortiz's book starts in the style of a primer with sections on the basic ingredients, kinds of leavenings, and basic techniques and procedures. He wants the newcomer to bake the very basic French loaf (think baguette) several times to get one decent loaf under the belt buckle. Then it's open season on regional breads, rye breads, and specialty breads. In a final section, Ortiz gives the true enthusiast professional style recipes and ideas. --Schuyler Ingle--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
This collection of nearly 100 recipes from the village bakers of France, Italy, Germany, and regional America are full of healthful and delicious departures from the usual array of baked goods. Professional baker Ortiz provides additional assistance with an entire chapter devoted to breadmaking techniques, with easy-to-follow instructions and two-color illustrations. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.