February 4, 2012 - 2:52am
a book for a novice?
since i hate jumping on here with every question under the sun, and, in the end, all i really want to do is make a loaf of tasty french bread (and the occasional sour dough loaf) - i was wondering if someone could recommend a book that would handle the basic questions, i.e. someone mentioned 'fermentation' and i had no idea what they were talking about! i would like to learn the basics and obviously i could use this forum and others, but if i dont know what to ask about, then they arent much use.
i just really want to learn the basics of bread making and am hoping there is a book out there on the market that would help me?
many thanks!
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Hi Tami,
Try Dan DiMuzio's "Bread Baking: An Artisan's Perspective". It's written as a textbook, so makes learning easy.
If you learn deeply and are not easily phased, then Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes" is a favourite text of mine; it's written very clearly and nothing is missed out and his recipes are always "bang-on". If not, Peter Reinhart's "Bread Baker's Apprentice" is a really good book. Its only downside for me is that he only uses imperial weights [which I convert to metric] and US volumetric measuring [which I refuse to use]. They are all on Amazon UK at good prices.
Best wishes
Andy
Tami,
I second Andy's advice on the books. Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice is an excellent book despite Andy's complaints on the measuring.....which I might add are totally valid but it is still a great book. The only real downside to US volumetric measuring is that it is totally inprecise, often wildly wrong, and horribly clumsy to deal with. Other than that....................................
Jeff