Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World

Rating:
Summary: Generous, gorgeous and delicious!
Review: HomeBaking delights in many ways - art book photos, human-scale geography and life stories, which acknowledge those whose recipes we can make our own. I wander happily from crisp portrait to kitchen shot to mountain vista. The functional groupings following the table of contents are brilliant - to dazzle guests, child-friendly recipes to make together, campfire baking, whole grains, celiac recipes and so on. Want recipes using sweet potatoes, or something to use up puff pastry? Use the index.

There's a straightforward bread lesson, explaining why a slow rise in a cool place produces better tasting bread that can be made around your schedule. Snowshoe Breads, a favourite of mine from Flatbreads and Flavours, is reworked in an improved version to brown the top. I love the Bread Baker's Fruit Tart - rinsing the rhubarb as directed reduces the tartness, meaning you need much less sugar. This book will join the other books by Alford and Duguid on my everyday cookbook shelf, but for now, is out on the table because it's too alluring to put away!

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Coffee Table Book
Review: Reading this book made my mouth water...the text, the recipe titles, and the photos are all amazing. Then, I went to bake some recipes from this book, and discovered that many of these recipes are problematic. I am not a novice baker by any means, and most of the time I don't have any problems working with recipes. I tried the apple pie recipe, with the sour cream crust-- it was alright, but certainly not something I'd make again. I tried the chocolate brownie recipe that sounded absolutely delicious on paper-- but the brownies were so ho-hum that I actually ended up tossing most of them. (Not worth the calories!0. I also made the banana bread recipe here and, again, although it wasn't bad it certainly wasn't great. I have actually tried cooking/baking from other cookbooks by Duguid and Alford, and overall I have found that their baking recipes are much inferior to their cooking recipes. I'm not sure why that is. I will continue to look through this book and admire the recipes, but I probably won't be too quick to try another recipe.

Rating:
Summary: A new standard Introduction to Baking. Outstanding
Review: This new book by husband and wife team Jeffrey Alford and Duguid succeeds in being that one in a hundred culinary works which both integrates ones knowledge of cooking and inspires one to press on to new and more interesting achievements.

The object of the book is to examine home baking around the world with recipe and anecdote and to encourage its preservation. As such, the book makes a rare good use of large, lush photographs to evoke a sense of time and place in this oversize format. The publisher, Artisan, has used this format several times before with works authored by Eric Ripert and Thomas Keller. While these volumes have been attractive, they have not succeeded quite as well as this volume.

Needless to say, all this good eye candy would have been of little value in a $40 book without good content. And this content is very, very good. This book will easily join my other favorite 'go to' baking book 'Baking With Julia' as the first stop when I want to try something new.

It is not surprising to find a book of such quality from these authors, as they have produced other books that have received high critical praise. What may be surprising is their subject, after having done two books centered on Asian savory cooking. The surprise disappears when you realize that their very first book, less well known than 'Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet' and 'Seductions of Rice' was a book on flatbreads of the world.

As good as this book is, it is important to be aware of its range. At about 440 pages, it is smaller than the shortest of Rose Levy Beranbaum's three 'Bibles' of baking. It is also shorter by far than the very good King Arthur 'Baking Companion'. So, it's value does not come from technical depth, although what general technical material it covers is an excellent introduction to various baking modes, and a delightful invitation to explore the subject more thoroughly in the more detailed books like those by Beranbaum. The discussion on pastry crusts is a perfect example. Dozens of books give different kinds of tie and crust recipes, but never explain with any authority the whys and wherefores of all the different options. This book explains why some crusts have shortening and some do not; why some crusts have egg yolk and some do not; why some have water and some do not. And, the key to the presentation is that it gives just enough information to pull together what we have read in a dozen books on piecrusts. To acquire more details, the authors have included one of my favorite features, a very good bibliography.

The authors always remain very pragmatic in their recommendations. Like the taxonomy of piecrusts, they discuss the influence of different flours on baking results, but do not get into some of the gritty details. They say that as much as you may benefit from using pastry or cake flour or vegetable shortening, you will probably always have all purpose flour and butter, so that is the pairing of choice for many ingredients lists. As important as buttermilk is as an ingredient, the authors effortlessly include a substitution in recipes where necessary, saving one an extra trip to the megamart. Also, while I have applauded recipes using weights in other books, with equal enthusiasm I congratulate these authors for leaving this technical detail below the horizon. I do urge you, however, to be aware of the issues in measuring and suggest you consult Ms. Beranbaum for the scoop on measuring.

All this is not to say that the book is simplistic. Some of it's recipes include some of the most challenging products of baking known to chronic Food Network junkies. It stops short of giving a recipe for phyllo dough, but it does include recipes for strudel dough and puff pastry. It also includes many less well-known local favorites. My personal favorite is the Hungarian walnut cake which is made primarily of finely ground walnuts and breadcrumbs rather than with any flour.

The chapter organization follows our traditional understanding of the major kingdoms in the world of baking. The four principle titles are 'Pastry', 'Bread', 'Smaller Breads', and 'Cakes and Cookies'. This manages to cover everyone's favorites, including sweet and savory pies, festive breads, artisinal breads, rolls, bagels, pancakes, cakes, cookies, and sweet buns. While the introductions to each of the four major topics are inspiring and informative, all the recipes are self-contained. You do not have to do a lot of flipping around to get all the information you need.

For those of you unfamiliar with baking recipes, be warned. By their nature, baking recipes are much longer than the average recipe for savory cooking, and they should be followed with greater attention to detail. Another surprise may the time it takes to achieve superior results. A workable pie crust can probably be put together in 30 minutes, but a great pie crust needs a lot of resting and care to get it to come out right. And, that doesn't even touch the surface of the time required to work up a good artisinal bread starter. The authors do not let this deter them and offer encouragement at every turn, explaining how some long waiting times can be put to your advantage, such as the fact that the waiting time for a dough's rise may not be critical and that a longer time unattended will actually improve your result.

If you have any interest at all in baking, this book is a must. Very highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL!!!!!
Review: Would you like to bake Portugese Egg Tarts, Middle Eastern Pizzas with Lamb and Pine Nuts, Almond Milk Bread? Or how about Tender Potato Bread, Velvety Bean Bread, Dom's Italian Boules and Focaccia?

There's also, Sweet Potato Rolls, Cranberry-Chocolate Sweet Buns, Chelsea Buns, Truck-Stop Cinnamon Rolls, Sticky Buns, Cathead Skillet Biscuits, Bangkok Waffles with Dipping Sauce, Snowshoe Bread, Ciabatta, Irish Potato Bread, New Year's Pear Cake, Naomi's Any-Day Skillet Cake, Brazilian Bolo, Martha's Mother's Cookies, and so on.

Or, if you are ready for a trip to Tibet, Wales, Syria, Brazil, France, and/or Italy--it's here, too. Please enjoy this wonderful book--in the kitchen for those you care for, and on the couch with a cup of coffee--and one of these finished recipes, of course.