Book Review - Bread

Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman, Wiley, 2004

If there was an American qualified to pull off a book simply titled “Bread”, Jeffrey Hamelman would be on the short list.  He is the director of the Bakery and Baking Education Center for King Arthur Flours and was at one time captain of the Baking Team USA that competed in the “Bread Olympics” in Paris which took first place in 1999.  Suffice to say, he knows a thing or two about the art of baking and his command of the topic comes through in his book Bread.

Like Peter Reinhart's BBA, Jeffery Hamelman spends the first quarter of Bread talking about the theory and method of baking bread.  In contrast with BBA, the discussion is clearly targeted for a baking technician, but is still very approachable for a home baker with some experience.  I especially enjoy his presentation on flour and the different grains used to make bread.

Of the cookbooks I have read, Bread presents an exceptional array of formula covering the entire spectrum of bread with especially strong sourdough and rye offerings.  Each formula presents both a “home” and commercial version.  The process associated with each formula is clearly presented and I have yet to find a flaw with any I have attempted.

In addition to general overview at the beginning of Bread, Jeffery also presents dedicated sections to the unique techniques needed to bake sourdough and high percentage rye breads.  Later in the book there is an excellent section on forming braided breads which I constantly refer back to.  This is also one of the rare books that has a section on making decorative breads.  While I have not tried it, making a basket out of bread would be an interesting project.

Bread is the book I used when I started working with sourdough.  His “Five-Grain Levain” and “Sourdough Seed Bread” are regulars on my weekly bakes.  His “Sourdough Rye with Walnuts” is also excellent and a good place to try out the techniques specific to rye breads.  After two years, I still routinely turn to Jeffery’s masterpiece.  My only grumble with Bread is the lack of pictures.  There are color pictures at places that show the final result for the critical breads but I do feel it detracts a bit from an otherwise exceptional book.

While not the best book for a person first starting out, it is the book you will want when casual baking turns into a weekly routine.  If I was being sent to a prison colony on a far away island, this is the book I would try and sneak along.

Book Review - Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads

Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor by Peter Reinhart, Ten Speed Press, 2007

Whole Grain Breads is another of Peter’s offerings and a bit overshadowed in my opinion by The Bread Baker's Apprentice (BBA).  Given the healthy benefits of eating more whole grains, this book allows a person to bake tasty and healthy breads with minimal fuss.  He has an interesting presentation on bread at a TED affiliated event shortly after the book came out that is worth a look and gives a sense of his goals for the book.

The book has a nice narrative that outlines his motivation of the book and then a presentation that is similar in structure to the one in BBA for the process of making bread.  One should not feel cheated however because the discussion on whole grain ingredients, the processes needed to make grain soakers, and the different preferments are unique to Whole Grain Breads and well worth it.  There is a nice selection of formulas with some attempting to take traditional white breads such as challah or brioche and execute them using whole grain ingredients.  As with BBA, the formulas are well presented, accurate and well tested.  I actually like the format used to present the formulas in Whole Grain Breads better than BBA but that is purely a personal preference.  

I still come back to Whole Grain Breads on occasion and routinely bake breads either directly from the formulas or after a bit of artistic license.   I even used Peter’s Transitional Rye formula to reverse engineer my great-grandmother's Bohemian style rye that I remember for my childhood.  The original recipe that was handed down to me was the typical “use 3 to 5 cups of flour from the local co-op and add water until not to firm...”  Using the techniques from Whole Grain Breads as a Rosetta Stone, I was able to come up with a bread that has the favor profile I remember and has received “This is just like great-grandma’s” from my family.  If you want to bake whole grain breads at home, this book is well worth the investment.

Book Review - The Bread Baker’s Apprentice

Some folks collect postage stamps, scrap booking stamps, model airplanes, toy trains, or wood planes. Lately, I collect books that somehow relate to flour mixed with water and heated to a high temperature. Since catching the bread bug, I have accumulated a bookshelf of them and most folks that find the need to buy me a gift, know one of the myriad from my Amazon wish list is a safe bet.

As I have collected, I have come to look for three very specific things when evaluating the greatness of a new addition to my bread cookbook collection. First and foremost, the bread recipes have to present the amount of flour by weight. As I pointed out in my post about making bread, unless you have the weight of flour, you cannot control the hydration. Without the weight, the ability of a person to execute a recipe for the first time with any degree of success is highly suspect.

Second only to having the weight of the flour is having pictures of the final outcome. While not a show stopper for basic breads, anything that is unusual or exotic should have a picture. If a person cannot find it at any local grocery, there should be a picture. Third, the recipes should be accurate and well tested. Inaccuracies in the types of ingredients, the ingredient amounts, or the procedure really detract from the enjoyment of trying a new bread recipe. I have reached a point where if I cannot get a success after the second or maybe third try, it is doubtful I will try the recipe again.

Using these general principals, I thought it might be fun to share my take on various bread related cookbooks that I have acquired. Some I learn from, some I bake from, and others just have an interesting narrative. There is no better place to start than with the book that started my bread obsession.

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart, Ten Speed Press, 2001

My wife gave me this book as a present one Valentines Day. Now every time she complains when we have to wait to go out until I put another fold in the dough I tell her it’s her own damned fault. On the other hand, she doesn’t complain much as long as there is frequent challah for PBJ’s.

Peter Reinhart is a teacher and prolific writer on the subject of bread baking with numerous other books to his name. While I have not read them all, this is the one that consistently comes up as the best of his offerings as well as one of the best all around books on bread written for the aspiring home bread baker. It is so well known, it is routinely just referred to by the acronym BBA. Probably the truest measure of the fundamental place this book has in the baking lexicon is the ongoing BBA Challenge. In the same spirit as those who attempt to make every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, bakers around the world attempt to bake every bread in the BBA.

It is well thought out with the first third of the book explaining the materials, equipment and processes needed to make good bread at home. The rest of the book has a nice broad selection of recipes (formula in the vernacular) that cover a pretty complete survey of the bread spectrum. The formula are well outlined and each one has a picture of the desired outcome. I have not tried all the them, but the ones that I have usually turn out well after the first or second try. Most times, when things don’t turn out, it is not the fault of the book but of me missing a step or taking liberty with the process.

I have to admit, I don’t use it as often as in the past. However as I write this, flipping through it again reminds me of just how excellent it is and I should really revisit some of the formula. It does however remain the one book I routinely recommend for anyone just starting out. In my opinion, anyone seriously into making bread at home should have a copy. To not is to either pretend you are serious or miss out on something very important.