The Reading Room
Here's what I have been reading. The first thing I learned was that there's lots to learn. I don't think you can ever be finished reading and learning about bread, or anything else for that matter. It amazes me how many different approaches there are to this stuff.
Well here it is boys and Girls; Maggie Glezer's grain based odyssey through the culture of Judaism, A Blessing of Bread, Recipes and Rituals, Memories and Mitzvahs. I think the best thing about this book is that I got ink! Just kidding. As you can see in the Challah Baloo section of this site, the recipes in this book are as varied and interesting as their sources. From simple challah to Kubana, a Yemenite Sabbath pull apart bread that bakes over night overnight. Maggie's adventure will certainly keep you from "same Old bread syndrome"!
Jeffrey Hamelman is the Director of the Baking Education Center at King Arthur Flour in Vermont. His new book Bread: A Baker's Book of Recipes and Techniques has a very unique quality. It address both professional and serious home bread bakers. Serious discussion of the principals and practices of bread baking rather than a collection of recipes. Want to move your bread baking up to the next level? Buy this book!
At the same time I bought Crust
& Crumb, I bought Nancy Silverton's
Breads From the LaBrea Bakery. This is also
a very comprehensive treatise. Her section on sourdough starters is very
thorough. Perhaps too thorough. Her starter takes 14 days to build, with 3
feedings per day. You also get the impression that if you deviate, even a
little, you will fail miserably. This isn't really true. I fed my starter twice
a day and it worked out OK. That said, there are some great recipes and lots of
good info in the book.
The Bread Builders is the most cerebral of the books in my bread library. There is not a single recipe or formula in the book. But there is an all encompassing discussion of naturally leavened bread. How and why things happen, a detailed scientific explanation of how flour and water become bread. There are parts you will need to read and re-read, but if you want to move beyond reading recipes and to really understand bread, I highly recommend this book.
Amy Scherber owns and operates Amy's Bread in New York City. At a recent demo cooking class I tasted her bread for the first time. I then went looking for the book. The semolina bread with raisins and fennel alone would have had me looking for the book. It's not easy to find. The best place to go is the Bread Bakers Guild of America. There is a link on my Links page to the Guild.
Artisan Baking is a big, beautiful book. It presents artisan bread baking in the form of a travel log. She covers various topics by visiting artisan bakers, big and not so big, all across the country. Each baker gives their spin on the matter of bread. Some great recipes and lots of good info.
Brother Juniper brings us back to Peter Reinhart. This is an earlier book than Crust & Crumb and gives a rather spiritual introduction to slow rise bread baking. There are interesting parallels draw between the baking of bread and life its ownself. It also includes his world famous Struan, a five grain masterpiece.
Raymond Calvel is considered by many to be a true bread guru. He is a chemist by training and really pulled the bread making process apart. The Taste of Bread is the English translation of his 1990 book. In it he examines every aspect of bread making and the effects that variations in things like temperature, hydration etc. have on the resulting bread. In addition to the scientific treatise, he includes numerous formulas. This book is a little intimidating but a worthy investment for the truly possessed.
See if you can detect a pattern in the books listed here. Peter Reinhart, The Doyen of Dough, has done it again. The Bread Baker's Apprentice takes Crust & Crumb to the next level. This new book enhances C & C with Peter's additional experience, including his time with Paris's most esteemed bakers, people like the brothers Poilâne and Phillippe Gosselin. Great pics, excellent explanations, this is a very approachable book. I'd buy it if I were you.
The Baker's Dozen is a group of 13 professional bakers that first met in 1989. Actually I think it was more like 40. They met to discuss the state of the baking art and to exchange ideas and information. This book is the product of the collective wisdom of the original 13 members (which includes what they have learned from others.) Breads, cookies, pies, tarts etc, if it's baked, it's covered here. Very easy to read with excellent, straightforward recipes. If you want to have a general baking book on your shelf, why not have one written by the collected best in the business?