Mastering Bread - The Art and Practice of Handmade Sourdough, Yeast Bread, and Pastry [A Baking Book] by Marc Vetri
Product Details
Web ID: 14738050Decades of Bread Making Knowledge!
Marc Vetri delivers a must have book on bread making that is incredibly detailed, informative and delicious! I first discovered Marc with his Mastering Pizza book that is my go to on pizza making. This book is broken into 12 chapters and includes 74 diverse recipes. The chapters are as follows: Grain, Mix, Fermentation, Shape, Bake,Yeast Breads, Enriched Yeast Breads, Sourdough Breads, Enriched Sourdough Breads, Pastry, Eat: Foods Made with Breads, Bonus Track:Panettone Alla Vetri as well as a section on Sources for Grains and Flour. Each chapter includes fantastic side bars full of information. Some titles include: Flour has Flavor, Inside the Whole Grain, Wheat varieties We Like, Scoring Techniques, Ways to Store Bread and my favorite Trouble Shooting Bread to name a few. Also, included are single pages that highlight various bakers and mill operators across the country which include great quotes on bread making. Inspiration for us all. The recipes are listed from easiest to hardest and the preceding chapters on mixing, fermenting, shaping and baking are great at getting you ready to make them all with ease. The recipes cover serious ground and mimic the chapters above starting with the Enriched Yeast Breads section. They include many types of breads and pastries such as focaccia, rolls, bagels, pretzels, challah, English muffins, beignets, sourdough, ciabatta, baguettes, cookies, tarts as well as recipes on foods that go with bread such as tomato marmalade, fava bean salad and roasted lamb sandwiches to name a few. The book has really good photo illustrations that offer step by step directions on shaping, mixing, folding, and other cooking methods. Whenever, I get a new bread book I always like to start with the sourdough recipe. This for me is ground zero. Much like when I go to a new pizza restaurant I always start with the margarita. It is the best way to judge how everything else will proceed from there. First, I resurrected my sourdough started from a long sleep in my fridge. The mixing and shaping were super easy and the over night fermenting in the fridge was a must. My final two loaves had great oven spring and the crumb was perfect. The flavor was pungent and tasty. Next up I took the opportunity to finally make bagels ! Whenever, I get a new cookbook I love to challenge myself a little and I have been avoiding bagel making for decades. I lived in New York City for 18 years and there was really no reason to make my own but when I moved to California the quality dropped substantially. I have been eating low quality bagels for a decade. Now I feel like I lost of a decade of goodness because these were super easy to make and were so so much better than any bagel I have eaten here. I can see myself making these all the time now. The dough was a low hydration one and was super easy to work with. Shaping the bagels was fun and the overnight ferment in the fridge broke things up so they were ready to boil and bake first thing in the morning. I bought a pre-mixed everything bagel mix of toppings at the store that made topping quick and easy. So good ! Mastering Bread is a great resource that takes decades of bread making knowledge and condenses it into 287 pages. There is so much in here and it will make all of us better bread makers. I have been fortunate enough to have received a free copy of this cookbook from Ten Speed Press in exchange for a free and unbiased review.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Master class in a book
This book is perfect if you want really high quality bread at home. It started out explaining all about grains, the varities and why this is important. There is a lot of information and the book is definitely well researched. The information presented at the beginning of the book help you understand why you use one grain over another and goes through each step in depth. This book is like taking a college course on bread making but you don't actually get to making bread until half way through the semester. That definitely isn't a bad thing and it sets you up to succeed. By the time you're making recipes you're knowledgable and well prepared. But to make good bread there is a lot that goes into it and understanding the different variables and steps is critical for consistent results. The book has plenty of photos to help you along as well as handy charts, tips and troubleshooting information. It's really an all in one resource. I made English muffins which were pretty easy and very very tasty. I also made red onion foccacia which didn't last very long in my house. I look forward to trying more of the technically challenging breads with more hard to find flours. There are plenty of recipes in this book that range from yeast breads, to sourdough and even some pastry. I like that this book has a lot of familiar breads that I usually buy but also some more unique recipes to peak my interest as well. I'd recommend this book for people who are serious about bread making or are looking to become serious. You'll need a scale for all of these recipes. The recipes are well explained but can be technically challenging and sometimes require special equipment or ingredients. It's worth it if you're into learning a lot about bread making! I've received a free copy from Ten Speed Press in exchange for a free and unbiased review.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A baking class in a book!
I've always been a home baker/cook with a secret desire to take culinary classes, not to be a professional, but just for the sheer delight of gaining more knowledge about something I love doing. So I was beyond delighted to receive a free copy of Mastering Bread from Ten Speed Press in exchange for a free and unbiased review. The culinary class has come to me, I thought. Indeed, Mastering Bread is so comprehensive that it will be a must purchase for professional chefs and bakers. Even though I have been baking bread since my teens, I had no idea how little I knew until I began reading this cookbook. Just learning that flour has flavor was a wake-up call. I knew about the different types of flour--all-purpose, bread, cake flour--but I had no idea flour has flavor. So far, thanks to coauthors Marc Vetri and Claire Kopp McWilliams, I've spent several happy hours on my "course" and intend to study Mastering Bread much more before I begin baking the recipes. Learning about grain as an ingredient, much as one would compare various types of apples or cheeses, has been eye-opening. Mastering Bread will make home bakers expert in everything from yeast breads to sourdough to pastry and cookies, with virtually every recipe listed over several pages of careful, detailed instructions and illustrations. The last chapter even offers recipes for making ricotta and butters to serve as spreads for your creations. For the truly adventurous home cook, Vetri (well known here in the Philadelphia area for his numerous restaurants) provides a whole chapter on making his famous Panettone alla Vetri. And there's a wonderful, surprise recipe after the acknowledgements! Essential to the recipes in the book is using the specific flours--whole-grain spelt, bolted hard wheat, whole-grain hard wheat--Vetri and McWilliams recommend. Luckily for me, I live only a half-hour or so from one of the numerous sources listed in the back of the book. Still, even though these top-of-the-line flours are the ideal, it would be easier for home bakers if they could make the recipes using the best of what is available in one's local supermarket.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com