The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens

Rating:
Summary: you can now make bread better than what you had in france
Review: this book teaches you how to bake the best bread you've ever ever had. and it's surprisingly easy.i've been making bread on the weekends and such for about 15 years now, ever since i saw a recipe for batter bread in an old joy of cooking. but although i'd tried many recipes and supposed "tips and tricks," i couldn't get a tasty or really beautiful european-style country loaf.so i would go to gourmet shops and spend US$5-7 a loaf and think,"o if i only had the fancy steam oven, the expensive mixer, then...."but daniel wing shows you how anybody with the most simple equipment can make incredible bread. although a lot of the book is devoted to building a brick oven, he explains how you can get that brick-oven effect with a regular home oven for only $50 with a special baking dish called "la cloche."if you've made a lot of bread, or read many recipes, you have certain ideas about"how bread should be made." it turns out a lot of the conventional wisdom is wrong! daniel wing includes a lot interesting scientific information that proves why his methods are superior to the conventional wisdom. following his methods gave me unbelievable results: crusty, tasty, made-in-a-french-village bread. i'll never go back to my old way of breadmaking. the best part -- the methods in this book are actually less work than the supposed "rapid" methods you find elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Amateur Artisan Baker's Bible
Review: This is a great book for the amateur artisan baker and it fulfills its two primary goals admirably. For the artisan baker, it provides the stoichiometry behind baking naturally-leavened bread - allowing one to adapt the basic formula and create new recipes that work! For those of you who, like me, try to recreate that hearth-baked bread flavor and texture in a conventional oven (only to fail), this book provides detailed plans and step-by-step instructions on constructing your own masonry oven! I have many bread cookbooks but this one is a real treasure! Buy it now!

Rating:
Summary: Amateur Artisan Baker's Bible
Review: This is a great book for the amateur artisan baker and it fulfills its two primary goals admirably. For the artisan baker, it provides the stoichiometry behind baking naturally-leavened bread - allowing one to adapt the basic formula and create new recipes that work! For those of you who, like me, try to recreate that hearth-baked bread flavor and texture in a conventional oven (only to fail), this book provides detailed plans and step-by-step instructions on constructing your own masonry oven! I have many bread cookbooks but this one is a real treasure! Buy it now!