The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

How Good is Suas' book "Advanced Bread and Pastry"?

hreik's picture
hreik

How Good is Suas' book "Advanced Bread and Pastry"?

My birthday is soon and hubby asked me what I wanted.  I always try to choose something I would never get for myself b/c of cost.  I found a copy at 1/2 the sale price.  It's still expensive tho.

I have Hamelman's book which I adore.  Also have FWSY by Forkish and Tartine. I like them, but Hamelman's is my go-to book.

Will Suas' book teach me a lot?  I am only really interested in the bread section.  Thank you in advance.

hester

Maverick's picture
Maverick

Saus's book is full of information. The question would be, how much of that would you actually need? The bread section is pretty large, and delves into the process with great detail. This detail can be daunting, but also interesting if you like that stuff. It is geared more towards mass production, but the instruction can easily be used for home baking as well. I suggest you go to amazon and click the "look inside" and scroll down. You get a lot of pages this way. At least enough to tell how much information there is. I would say it is more of a text book style. I would say that it is nice to have around if you want a ton of information and won't get overwhelmed.

Personally, I have the electronic version because it is cheaper. I have met Michel at SFBI, and he is very helpful and down to Earth.

OldWoodenSpoon's picture
OldWoodenSpoon

for a copy, not only of this book but for others as well.  Even if you don't have a library card you can sit and read in the library, but if you have one, and if they have a copy in the system somewhere, you can even bake from it a bit and see if you like it, or if you would rather have something else.  I did that with several bread cookbooks from my own library system, and my top choices moved down on my list, and some I thought less of moved up.  It's a great way to shop for books.

Best of Luck
OldWoodenSpoon

storandelli's picture
storandelli

I have a large collection of cookbooks and I have both Saus and Hamelman.  I gotta agree with Maverick in that has almost too much information.  I've been baking most of my life and Hamelman has been my go to guy for the last 10 years.  I like information (a bit geeky) but if you're only interested in bread, that's only about a third of Saus's book.  I'd buy more bannetons ;)
Good luck

hreik's picture
hreik

responses were helpful.

Maverick, the Amazon links don't open pages for me.  I was wondering if it'd be too much for a part time home baker.

Old Wooden Spoon (love your handle) I agree. I will see if my local library (a really good one) has it.  Hamelman's book is my bread bible and has been since I got savvy enough to use it.

Storeandelli, when 2 bakers on my favorite blog tell me the same thing, I'm gonna listen. With 3, it's a sale.  Maybe I'll get more bannetons. 

Thanks so much everyone.

hester

Maverick's picture
Maverick

Are you in the US? The Amazon preview feature is probably the best way to find out other than a library (but this is probably not in most libraries).

Edit: Sent you a PM

hreik's picture
hreik

thank you. got your pm.  If the world were made up of people like you, we'd be better off.  Thank you again.

hester

bikeprof's picture
bikeprof

Just a note that the VAST majority of the book covers pastry (if you didn't pick that up from the TOC on Amazon)...

 

...I'll also make a pitch for The Bread Builders as a great resource that is on my shelf (even though I don't use the oven discussion, the explanation of the biology of sourdough fermentation is really valuable).