I have all of Peter Reinhart's books (The Bread Baker's Apprentice, et al)
and I have the rest of the books you listed as well as many, many more.
However, the book to which I have been turning more often of late is Jeffrey Hamelman's book
Bread "A Baker's Book of Technique and Recipes"
I like the format and even though I truly love Peter Reinhart's books, I find that the charts and detailed instructions are very helpful, particularly when I am teaching another person, because the explanations as to WHY are so informative.
Read the reviews, I bought the book a year ago after reading the reviews on Amazon.
The following are the particular reviews I found most important in choosing this book.
As one reviewed noted it is handy to make a copy of the technique sections - I scanned and printed out the specific pages and laminated them with the recipes themselves and stuck them into the book as place markers at the particular recipes I have made. When I am ready to prepare one, I pull the laminated sheets out of the book and stick them up on the front of a cabinet over my baking prep area.
"Still learning, March 20, 2005
Reviewer: mb_quilts (upstate NY) - See all my reviews
I'm a home-baker and found this book to be an amazing education. Although I've been baking bread on and off for years, I felt like I was starting over again and learning correct techniques and principles. At first I often felt like I was juggling as I tried to put new techniques in action, but as the new ways became more practiced the awkward feelings subsided and the bread improved!
I now have two starters going and make bread on a more regular basis with predictable results.
For those interested in learning more about how bread making works this is a great book. Dense in places and different from most cookbooks which give you complete info for each recipe. Hamelman discusses the general concepts and techniques first and then provides formulas which rely on those ideas. Expect to do a lot of flipping back and forth at first or make a copy of the technique or recipe so you can see both at once.
I'm still sampling the recipes but I've tried rye bread, basic sourdough, challah, bialys - all with good result.
If you want to know why something makes a difference and want to learn so that you can bake bread with confidence and understanding, this is a wonderful book to have. My recommendation is to get a good scale too, so you can weigh all your ingredients for best results.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Best of the Bunch, March 12, 2005
Reviewer: DANIEL T. DIMUZIO "Dough Dude" (Birmingham, Alabama) - See all my reviews
I'm a bread baking instructor at a culinary school located in the Southeast U.S. I've probably read every bread baking book aimed at the artisan bread movement, and there are quite a few that are worth owning. Hamelman's book is simply the best of them.
I have to take issue with one of the previous reviewers who suggested that the book is intended mostly for professionals. It is true that many of the recipes feature small quantities expressed as weights, but I believe this is done on purpose -- to encourage the beginner as well as the pro to rely upon precise scaling as the best starting point for a successful baking job. Digital scales are now inexpensive to own, and any serious baker -- whether amateur or professional -- should have one.
I use his book as the primary text for my class. Most of my students are not experienced bakers, and they appreciate his ability to write for both amateurs and professionals in a clear, concise style that assumes no serious experience with bread while resisting the urge to "dumb-down" the material covered.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
The most advanced bread book I own, December 15, 2004
Reviewer: Robert M. Halperin (Champaign, IL USA) - See all my reviews
"Bread" is, by far, the best book on the subject that I own. It has large sections on breads made with yeasted preferments, sourdoughs and ryes. I made one of the ryes last week and it was superb.
This book is really written for the professional baker. The home baker is really an afterthought in this book. Each recipe is given in metric and U.S. wieghts for about 40 loaves. The last column of each recipe is for the home baker, but most of the weights are in fractions of an ounce. If you have a digital scale that will weigh out (say) 6.4 ounces of whole wheat flour, that is great. If not, you'll need to buy one. You can use the volume approximations in the "Home baker" column, but Hamelman highly recommends that you weigh. All recipes are also given in "baker's percentages" which, once you master the idea, should allow you to make any size batch of dough. The recipe I tried called for 1 teaspoon of rye sourdough culture. Can you imagine making rye starter for this small amount? I used my white sourdough starter and the recipe came out fine. There is a lot of arithmetic taught in this book. For example, it teaches the reader how to use baker's percentages. It also teaches the reader how kneading the dough affects the dough's temperature.
The book also uses terms such as "bulk fermentation" and "folding" which are probably not familiar to many home bakers.
Why did I five this book 5 stars? It is because I have been a serious home baker for over 30 years and this book is the next step in my enjoyment of this hobby. I feel ready for all of the technical material it throws my way. It is, however, NOT for the person who is just starting to bake bread at home.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Best bread book I own so far, November 8, 2004
Reviewer: agardenchair (Germany) - See all my reviews
There are numerous things that put this bread book above the other books about home-bread-baking that I own. Apart from the fact that the breads turned out exceptionally well from loaf No. 1. I have to insist that it is very clearly written and well structured. Side remarks are even in a different color, so you will not get distracted from the recipes.
The book discusses these methods for making bread:
- Breads made with pre-fermented dough using either a saltless starter, also known as "poolish" or "Biga" (or "Anstellgut" in german) or a starter made with a little salled called "Pte fermente"
- Breads made with levain (i.e. white sourdough)
- Rye sourdough breads
- Straight doughs (using no pre-fermented doughs)
(- Other assorted breads or baking goods, that didn't fit into the aforementioned categories)
Tthe author does a very good job of teaching how you can make a lot of breads out of small amounts of the starter. I finally got around to maintaining a levain and a rye sourdough culture! I didn't know it was that easy. And you only need to take up to two table spoons of any of those starters to have a great bread within 36 hours. The rye sourdoughs may not be as acidic as some of the breads you can buy here in Germany, but they still make very good mild rye sourdough breads.
The quality of the breads that I was able to make is astounding. I witnessed oven spring that didn't know was possible in a home oven.
I find it very amusing that I had to buy an american baking book in order to learn how to make a genuine "Vollkornbrot" or a good sunflower seed bread - both traditional german breads. And I wished german baking professionals were a bit more forthcoming when it comes to sharing their secrets. To be honest, I don't know one single german bread book that is even remotely as good this one."
Edited by andiesenji, 16 September 2006 - 10:04 AM.
dish to prepare at home and have no inspiration. Still, there are a few things that can be improved. The leavened breads recipes use IMO too much yeast and therefore rise too quickly compromising the final product's flavor. I've modified them decreasing yeast amount, increasing rise time (using cooler rooms and even fridge), and even adapted a few of them to use sourdough starter with very nice results.
