PrintWhat is your favorite book about baking bread?
I want to do more bread baking at home and I'm looking for a good book to get me started. What is your favorite?
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18 Comments:
I recently acquired The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart. It is a good primer for baking.
I also like The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.
If you have never baked bread before I suggest starting out with the no knead varations posted all over the food blogs. Then work your way up to more labor intense breads.
Yeast is a task master you have to make friends with. You can do it. I often hear on this blog how people say they have trouble with yeast. If at first you don't succeed, try try again.
JerzeeTomato at 6:03AM on 10/20/07
Beard on Bread
The King Arthur Flour Cookbook
NanaJoie at 7:46AM on 10/20/07
I've used Cook's Illustrated Baking Illustrated, The King Arthur Flour Cookbook, RLB's The Bread Bible, and even Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food (which is all about baking). Any of them would be a good place to start, as they have great primers on bread baking, have terrific directions, and every one of them lists their ingredients by weight (which means they actually care how your product will turn out).
Good luck -- ever since I got into baking bread at home, I haven't purchased a loaf from the store (but I'm a little nuts) :-)
Dominic
the zen kitchen
dvchurch at 9:43AM on 10/20/07
I started out with Beard on Bread and moved on to Carol Field's book on Italian breads. I just ordered the new Reinhart book and have loved using No Need to Knead by Suzanne Dunaway. Great Foccacia in that!
suegsf at 11:36AM on 10/20/07
My favorite book about bread baking is Bread Alone by Daniel Leader. The foreword is a love letter to the art of bread baking. Try used book sites - it will be well worth whatever price you pay.
Another favorite is Bernard Clayton's Big Book of Bread (or something like that). It's very old. My favorite recipe out of that one is for Royal Hibernian Brown Bread, a brown Irish sodabread I make every year.
chiff0nade at 11:41AM on 10/20/07
The King Arthur 200th Anniversary Cookbook, and although it's not strictly about bread, Baking With Julia.
srhcb at 11:19AM on 10/21/07
I absolutely agree about Bread Alone. The forward is indeed a love letter and inspiring for beginning and advanced bakers alike. Two standout recipes for me -- the French baguette (which takes some time, but is soooo worth it) and the angel biscuits (pretty easy and delicious!).
kathy in oakland at 1:23AM on 10/22/07
he Bread Baker's Apprentice for sure. I make rolls from the white bread variation 2 at least once a week. His explanation about technique just clicks with me and I've never had a failure with his book!
elderberry44 at 3:06AM on 10/23/07
Bernard Clayton's "Complete Book of Breads" is AMAZING. Every bread I've made from it (at least 50-60 by now) has come out beautifully and there are tons of different ones. I have at least 10 other books of bread recipes and keep getting more, yet I go back to Clayton over and over when I want to be sure that a loaf will turn out. It's a perfect book for a novice because there are really simple recipes but you can work your way up, and his explanations are really good.
Peter Reinhart's new book, with all whole wheat recipes, is also fantastic, but better if you have some experience and are also willing to really commit yourself to bread and to work with recipes in the half-scientific, half-religious way he does.
harlem_panadera at 10:08AM on 10/23/07
Silverton's. Her La Brea baguettes back in the early 1990s are still the best bread I've had in the U.S.
Sandro at 11:49AM on 10/23/07
I've been making recipes from Beard on Bread since I was a little girl. I have my mother's copy, a tattered little hardback that has been with me for 15 years. I'd love to try something even better if anyone has good ideas.
eatnutmeg at 12:38PM on 10/23/07
I also have and highly recommend Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. My favorite (and my wife's) is the braided potato bread.
I love The Bread Baker's Apprentice, but the Clayton book is probably better for beginners.
Don Luis at 6:48PM on 10/23/07
Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World (Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid) is a favorite of mine. Gorgeous and evocative, with genuinely good recipes.
pieninja at 12:37PM on 10/25/07
I second Nancy Silverton's La Brea Bakery cookbook. Not for the faint of heart, but every recipe is right on. I
nellopea at 6:36PM on 10/25/07
Beard on Bread bought 30 years ago. Still my go-to bread bible.
hatlady at 10:46AM on 10/26/07
Pizza's a kind of bread -- right?
American Pie by Reinhart is a great cookbook. All the non-quick-breads I make are pizza or the minimalist's bread, so I must choose American Pie.
Cook's Illustrated Baking Illustrated and Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food are nice cookbooks, but they make use of lots of ingredients that I don't keep lying around, like buttermilk, plain yogurt, and oat flour, and so I never seem to use them.
OneEyedMan at 12:32PM on 10/26/07
I can't do without these: Beard on Bread (my first bread book),Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb and The Bread Baker's Apprentice (the pain à l'ancienne recipe is incredible), and Maggie Glezer's Artisinal Baking Across America.
hobnob at 5:11PM on 10/26/07
I like The Bread Bible. I also like the Williams Sonoma books.
deborahs at 10:22PM on 10/27/07