Bread Making - Recommend a book

trotter_inc

Hello

Could someone here recommend a good break making book? I've lots of recipe books and some of them contain a couple of basic bread recipes. However, most of them (especially brown recipes for some reason) have been complete disasters and I'd like a dedicated bread making book to add to my collection.

Thanks for the help

Tommy

Tree

I absolutely adore Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley. The first third of the book explains everything you need to know about how bread works before the actual recipes start. Ignore the anti-supermarket bread faff, though.

oldrnwisr

I'd recommend the River Cottage Bread Handbook. It covers all the basic bread recipes including full details on making and caring for your own sourdough starter as well as other more unusual recipes.

CJhaughey

I liked Dough by Richard Bertinet, nice modern breads and simple easy to follow recipes.

Deise Musashi

"Crust" by Richard Bertinet

"The Bread Bakers Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart

"Crust and Crumb" by Peter Reinhart

Bertinet's books are great as he uses proper measures, Reinhart uses cups and ha an American slant to everything, types of flour available etc.

Reinhart is excellent on the science of bread and yeast, and includes the baker's formulas for all breads.
You can decide you want four lbs. of dough and work back the percentages of water, flour, yeast etc. to get the result you want.

Check out the bread forums as well, lots of people "Cooking the books" or making every recipe in each book and giving feedback on them.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/

http://www.breadcetera.com/?p=8

Dahtac

The bread and pastry section in Ferguson Henderson's 'Beyond Nose to Tail'. Not exhaustive by any stretch, but probably one of the most fulfilling selections of recipes ever devised

breen_og

the bourke street bakery is also very good. As is the culinary institute of america's pastry and baking. The CIA have all the theory and science, while the bourke street bakery has some damn good recipes.

Ronanc1

I was actually gonna make a thread about this exact topic recently, One thing i find is i look at cookbooks online but sometimes reviews never give you a good idea of what you get in them, (its handy to be able to leaf through them if you can find 'em in a bookshop)

But i digress, i think ive seen this book mentioned here before:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bread-Bakers-Book-Techniques-Recipes/dp/0471168572/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328043931&sr=1-4

Wondering if anyone would recommend it, Im looking for a book that has a big diverse range of bread recipes, ones from around the world etc or just a diverse range ya know

Deise Musashi

Just go to http://www.thefreshloaf.com and bake!

Job done!

trotter_inc

oldrnwisr wrote: »

I'd recommend the River Cottage Bread Handbook. It covers all the basic bread recipes including full details on making and caring for your own sourdough starter as well as other more unusual recipes.

Thanks for the recommendation on this!! It's my birthday today and my wife bought me this book, I'm supposed to be working today but I can't put it out of my hand, I've read the preface and introduction I want to get stuck in right now

While I'm here, can I ask you guys about baking stones? From what I've read so far, most people swear by them for giving the bread a good crust. I've come across quite a few US based sites talking about a "fibrament stone", though from doing a Google search (on Irish sites) I can't find much references to them here. Do most people use unglazed terracotta tiles? Or, what's the best option which can be easily picked up from a local tile or hardware shop?

Thanks again guys!

Tree

I got a pizza stone from kitchen complements (basically a circular unglazed tile). It's great for pizza bases. dont tend to use it for bread as it gives the base a bit more crustiness than the rest. Instead I just flip the loaf over toward the end of cooking if i want to make the base more baked.

Deise Musashi

can I ask you guys about baking stones? From what I've read so far, most people swear by them for giving the bread a good crust. I've come across quite a few US based sites talking about a "fibrament stone", though from doing a Google search (on Irish sites) I can't find much references to them here. Do most people use unglazed terracotta tiles? Or, what's the best option which can be easily picked up from a local tile or hardware shop?

I use some big tiles that were left over from when we did the bathroom. They aren't quite the full size of the rack in the oven (which would be ideal). I could cut some more tile to fill the gaps, but it works ok.

The main purpose is to add thermal mass to the oven and have a preheated surface to give a good crust on loaves and pizza base.

Any fired tile has been in a kiln already, much hotter than my oven can get! I'd measure the space you have to fill on the racks and get two tiles as close to that size as possible. Thicker is better for heat retention, and unglazed looks good. Mine are scorched and blackened at this point and live in the oven permanently anyway. Granite would be cool to have!

I broke one putting a cold casserole on a hot tile, but that's once out of hundreds of uses.

Don't forget to get a plant mister and spray the bread dough as it goes in the oven, plenty steam makes a better crust! I would love to pipe steam from a steam cleaner into the oven with microbore copper piping, see how that would work out!

Before spraying, cover the glass door of your oven with a tea towel!

You don't want to shatter that just before you bake!

Here's some I've done lately...





And when you don't reduce time to account for a milk wash



Still tasted great though, I made a poolish and kept it in the fridge for a week, feeding it honey, before baking on the weekend.

BloatedPope

I just recently began baking regularly so i'm still very much in the midst of the learning process. The Ballymaloe Break Book by Tim Allen was recommended to me and I've been using it since. It's a fantastic book and I would advise anyone learning to bake to buy it.

stimpson

Deise Musashi wrote: »

Just go to http://www.thefreshloaf.com and bake!

Job done!

I'm new to baking, but I did lots of reading on The Fresh Loaf while nursing my starter. I've done a few sourdough loaves and they have all been successes, mostly due to the advice picked up there.

Yesterday I did my first boule based in this recepie by Desie:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=68371665&postcount=13

I halved the quantities but it still made a monster loaf. I should probably made 2 smaller loaves - it rose so much it hit the top of the oven! One big help I found was this guys videos on shaping loaves. Getting surface tension is important for a proper rise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUeS2PSXtP8

Deise Musashi

Yesterday I did my first boule based in this recepie by Desie...I halved the quantities but it still made a monster loaf.

Cheers for trying that recipe lad, it's a bit involved but worth it for the creamy taste the poolish gives after three days to a week in the fridge!

I should have added there that the recipe gives about ten or fifteen french breads depending on length/size of your oven and a couple of boules!

Getting surface tension is important for a proper rise.

They do need to be properly stretched and tucked in to work right, my first tries just spread out like flat bread in the oven! My kids love helping to shape the dough, even if it needs a little nip and tuck afterwards



The smell of a yeast starter is enough to get my mouth watering now, and the wee man thinks the starter smells like his Granddad's home brew.