Andrew Whitley
And I agreed, But I got "Bread Matters" out of the library anyway to take a look,
Once past the first few pages of almost rabid speculation about what may or may not be added or subtracted to grains it reads like a political campaign!, I saw that the book was full of very sound advice on breadmaking as well as explaining why most commercially made bread is such a spectacular failure.
I particularly like the following that appears on page, Too bad it's not in big letters right at the beginning of the book!
Whitley then goes on to list the amount of time required and generous amounts of time too:minutes for taking bread in and out of the oven to amount to half an hour of "our" activity to produce bread that may takehours in all from start to finish.
Not that this is the first time someone has said this, . . the inimitable Julia Child wrote something similar much much earlier:
While I agree on principal about using "organic" ingredients, I've never been absolutely convinced.
But Whitley's description of "nonorganic" yeast production were the first to really start swaying me into beginning to actively seek out organic ingredients,
Fully half the book is taken up with techniques, troubleshooting ideas and alternate names and properties of various flours, There is also extensive information on creating and maintaining sourdoughs,
And this is why I decided to buy the book, Not for the recipes. For the methods.
reread library copy of ebook November
Ha!!
Major Complaint about the ebook:
The ingredients chart all text in Chapterdescribing the functions of various ingredients is virtually unreadable in the ebook even with a magnifying glass.
In order to see what is written, it is necessary to look at the ebook on the computer, and even then, the print is very very small.
The trouble shooting chart is equally difficult to read, Shame on the ebook publishers for allowing that to happen!
Still, the book is jammed with really great information on flours, milling, how various ingredients act, ideal dough temperature, yeasted breads, sourdough, etc.
etc. The sections on salt and fat are particularly fascinating, As is the large section on sourdough, There is also a chapter on what to do with old bread: croutons, bread crumbs, bread pudding, . . the usual. Well, almost usual. There is a recipe for "Brown Bread Ice Cream"!
As a novice breadmaker I found it inspirational and very helpful, although it is written very much from the point of view of the professional baker, not the occasional baker in a domestic kitchen.
But it does cut through a lot of the nonsense one reads about baking, with practical advice on how to go about it and how to fix it, if things don't go as you expect.
It also covers a lot of ground explaining how to make different kinds of bread from many parts of the world, in a very accessible style.
This book put it all together for me with recipes that work for someone that is still a beginner, I had originally ordered this book as it was referenced in a book about celiac's disease and gluten sensitivity, The context of the reference seemed to indicate that this book would get into details on old versus new wheats, sourdough impact on gluten, etc, Therefore my first impression of the book was one of disappointment, because it reads as more of a subjective primer than an objective, indepth research paper, Once I got over my expectations, however, I found this book entertaining, educational, interesting and fun to read, The book is about half discussion and half cookbook, The discussion part can be a little boring, particularly when the author lists every possible thing you need to have on hand to make bread but it is detailed and possibly a great list for a beginner.
His editorial comments on supermarket bread, and other forms of convenience bread are hilarious and right on from my perspective, His humor keeps his somewhat apolitical comments from coming across too strongly, The author does go into some discussion about different wheats old vs, new and other grains but his overall premise is stop buying store bread and make your own, The second half of the book are different bread recipes, I was a little disappointed that he provided so many recipes with baker's yeast after having blasted it in his discussion but he also provides many sourdough recipes.
I have tried several of them, and they have turned out great, The recipes are also nice because the breads are different rye breads, fruit/nut breads, etc, all using sourdough. I have found from experience that these recipes can be hard to find, I really liked his table at the end of the book listing the different properties of the different grains wheat and nonwheat, It is interesting to see what processing does to these products, So overall a great collection of information on grains, editorial comments, and wonderful recipes! I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in baking their own bread or taking their breadmaking to another level.
I wish I had had this book when I first started making bread years ago, . . I love this book. This is not so much a cook book as a treatise on bread, A surprisingly scientifically rigorous look at the whole process of bread making from someone who has centred his whole life around baking, I shouldn't really be reviewing it as I haven't actually tried any of its recipes, but I am really looking forward to trying! I'm biased here, Andrew taught me how to bake bread, Try his Borodinsky Russian loaf, Wonderful! really insightful treatise on bread, not sure how well I'll be able to apply it though, The recipes had a bit of a Russian theme so I'm excited to try making the bread supposedly first baked the night of the battle of Borodino! I am setting this as finished because I have, technically, read all of it.
However, I am going to buy a copy because I don't think recipe books are ever something you actually finish reading, Alas, the world of booklogging tends to not leave a space for such unusualities!
Whitley is
a very good, concise writer about both the importance of understanding what is in bread, and how to make your own.
I came to this conclusion about halfway through when I read a set of instructions for a sourdough starter that didn't have me thinking that I might need to learn biochemistry or understand the phases of the moon.
And I particularly liked the presentation of the recipes as base recipes that could then be adapted but! with tips and hints as to how to do that.
A lot of recipe books not just for bread assume that the knowledge of how to do this has somehow magically been inserted into the readers brain as they perused the earlier recipes and just leave you standing baffled.
.
is not a recipe book as such though there are a few, The first half of the book is devoted to explaining how bread is made, the science behind it and lamenting the state of much of the bread sold and eaten in Britain today.
The second half has a few basic recipes which talk you through the process easily and simply, You can easily amend the basic guides to make your bread more interesting after all most loaves are just a variation on a theme,
This book is well written interesting and once you know the process you can see the endless possibilities in just flour water salt and maybe yeast.
If you have an interest in eating better bread and/or making your own this is worth a read, Wasn't sure if I needed another bread book, but who really "needs" another cookbook, at least in this group Glad I got it though, The author is very opinionated, and while I agree with some of his thoughts, there are also quite a few with which I disagree, That aside, the bread collection is interesting and unusual, and the directions for creating, maintaining, and reviving sourdough starters are excellent, In another review, Teresa said,
Who really "needs" another cookbook, at least in this group
And I agreed, But I got "Bread Matters" out of the library anyway to take a look,
Once past the first few pages of almost rabid speculation about what may or may not be added or subtracted to grains it reads like a political campaign!, I saw that the book was full of very sound advice on breadmaking as well as explaining why most commercially made bread is such a spectacular failure.
I particularly like the following that appears on page, Too bad it's not in big letters right at the beginning of the book!
Many people think that baking bread takes too long, But it doesn't need to take much of your time ie, time that you may not have or feel you cannot spare, Breadmaking is a sequence of relatively short actions interspersed with periods of waiting,
Whitley then goes on to list the amount of time required and generous amounts of time too:minutes for taking bread in and out of the oven to amount to half an hour of "our" activity to produce bread that may takehours in all from start to finish.
Not that this is the first time someone has said this, . . the inimitable Julia Child wrote something similar much much earlier:
Ye gods! But you're not standing around holding it by the hand all this time.
No . The dough takes care of itself, While you cannot speed up the process, you can slow it down at any point by setting the dough in a cooler place , . . then continue where you left off, when you are ready to do so, In other words, you are the boss of that dough Julia Child, "From Julia Child's Kitchen" publisher: Alfred A Knopf
While I agree on principal about using "organic" ingredients, I've never been absolutely convinced.
But Whitley's description of "nonorganic" yeast production were the first to really start swaying me into beginning to actively seek out organic ingredients,
Fully half the book is taken up with techniques, troubleshooting ideas and alternate names and properties of various flours, There is also extensive information on creating and maintaining sourdoughs,
And this is why I decided to buy the book, Not for the recipes. For the methods.
reread library copy of ebook November
As to the act of making bread,
it would be shocking indeed,
if that had to be taught by the means of books.
William Cobbett, Cottage Economy
Ha!!
Major Complaint about the ebook:
The ingredients chart all text in Chapterdescribing the functions of various ingredients is virtually unreadable in the ebook even with a magnifying glass.
In order to see what is written, it is necessary to look at the ebook on the computer, and even then, the print is very very small.
The trouble shooting chart is equally difficult to read, Shame on the ebook publishers for allowing that to happen!
Still, the book is jammed with really great information on flours, milling, how various ingredients act, ideal dough temperature, yeasted breads, sourdough, etc.
etc. The sections on salt and fat are particularly fascinating, As is the large section on sourdough, There is also a chapter on what to do with old bread: croutons, bread crumbs, bread pudding, . . the usual. Well, almost usual. There is a recipe for "Brown Bread Ice Cream"!
Making sourdough bread is easy, People have made bread this way for thousands of years, This simple folk knowledge has been rediscovered by a new community of enthusiasts and some terrific naturally fermented bread can now be had, . . But if you look for guidance on making this sort of bread at home, it seems strangely complicated, It doesn't have to be like this, All that is needed is a clear understanding of what happens when flour and water are mixed and left in a warm place, The rest is detail. chapter seven, Simple SourdoughA concise guide with many interesting recipes, The best book Ive read on the principles of bread baking, with the authors decades of experience coming through clearly, Contains my goto starter recipe and cuts through a lot of old wives tales about bread, Also discusses the protein content of flours, what each ingredient actually does, and the science behind it all, A musthave for any bread baker, My bread making Bible! This is a mustread book for anyone who makes, or is thinking of making, their own bread or who wants to know why they should think about it, if they are not already.
Bookmarked Recipes:
Borodinsky
Arkatena Bread
Altamura Semolina Bread
Semolina, Raisin and Fennel Bannock
Minor Quibble: It's difficult not to be put off just a little.
Poolish Despite its strange name, this is the French equivalent of the English sponge, The term is much loved by a rather earnest kind of American artisan baker, Chapter: Starting from Scratch
This sort of implies that bread making began in England, doesn't it Not that I'm a fan of the word "poolish".
. . but it just seems a little odd to spout off about the word without offering any real information,
From what I understand from earlier reading, "Poolish" is the term for a high hydration preferment that was first used by Polish bread bakers, Here are twoFrench bakers perfected the production of sur levain sourdough white breads due to the availability of higher quality wheat flour.
Austrian bakers who emigrated to Paris aroundinitiated the production of Vienna breads and other luxury products, A Polish nobleman, the Baron Zang, introduced the use of the poolish, a multistage fermentation method based on the use of prepared yeast that is still practiced by specialists today.
Karel Kulp, Klaus Lorenz editors, Handbook of Dough Fermentations, p
The Polish sponge method was developed in Poland during thes, when industrially produced baker's yeast first made its appearance.
It was later adopted by the bakers of Vienna, The poolish method was used to make the very first breads leavened entirely with baker's yeast, In France, loaves of this type were to become widely known and were produced under the name of "Vienna breads, " Raymond Calvel English translator: Ronald L, Wirtz, The Taste of Bread, p,
As a novice breadmaker I found it inspirational and very helpful, although it is written very much from the point of view of the professional baker, not the occasional baker in a domestic kitchen.
But it does cut through a lot of the nonsense one reads about baking, with practical advice on how to go about it and how to fix it, if things don't go as you expect.
It also covers a lot of ground explaining how to make different kinds of bread from many parts of the world, in a very accessible style.
This book put it all together for me with recipes that work for someone that is still a beginner, I had originally ordered this book as it was referenced in a book about celiac's disease and gluten sensitivity, The context of the reference seemed to indicate that this book would get into details on old versus new wheats, sourdough impact on gluten, etc, Therefore my first impression of the book was one of disappointment, because it reads as more of a subjective primer than an objective, indepth research paper, Once I got over my expectations, however, I found this book entertaining, educational, interesting and fun to read, The book is about half discussion and half cookbook, The discussion part can be a little boring, particularly when the author lists every possible thing you need to have on hand to make bread but it is detailed and possibly a great list for a beginner.
His editorial comments on supermarket bread, and other forms of convenience bread are hilarious and right on from my perspective, His humor keeps his somewhat apolitical comments from coming across too strongly, The author does go into some discussion about different wheats old vs, new and other grains but his overall premise is stop buying store bread and make your own, The second half of the book are different bread recipes, I was a little disappointed that he provided so many recipes with baker's yeast after having blasted it in his discussion but he also provides many sourdough recipes.
I have tried several of them, and they have turned out great, The recipes are also nice because the breads are different rye breads, fruit/nut breads, etc, all using sourdough. I have found from experience that these recipes can be hard to find, I really liked his table at the end of the book listing the different properties of the different grains wheat and nonwheat, It is interesting to see what processing does to these products, So overall a great collection of information on grains, editorial comments, and wonderful recipes! I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in baking their own bread or taking their breadmaking to another level.
I wish I had had this book when I first started making bread years ago, . . I love this book. This is not so much a cook book as a treatise on bread, A surprisingly scientifically rigorous look at the whole process of bread making from someone who has centred his whole life around baking, I shouldn't really be reviewing it as I haven't actually tried any of its recipes, but I am really looking forward to trying! I'm biased here, Andrew taught me how to bake bread, Try his Borodinsky Russian loaf, Wonderful! really insightful treatise on bread, not sure how well I'll be able to apply it though, The recipes had a bit of a Russian theme so I'm excited to try making the bread supposedly first baked the night of the battle of Borodino! I am setting this as finished because I have, technically, read all of it.
However, I am going to buy a copy because I don't think recipe books are ever something you actually finish reading, Alas, the world of booklogging tends to not leave a space for such unusualities!
Whitley is
a very good, concise writer about both the importance of understanding what is in bread, and how to make your own.
I came to this conclusion about halfway through when I read a set of instructions for a sourdough starter that didn't have me thinking that I might need to learn biochemistry or understand the phases of the moon.
And I particularly liked the presentation of the recipes as base recipes that could then be adapted but! with tips and hints as to how to do that.
A lot of recipe books not just for bread assume that the knowledge of how to do this has somehow magically been inserted into the readers brain as they perused the earlier recipes and just leave you standing baffled.
.