My plan to do a book review as a baker of “Inside The Jewish Baker”, has taken a turn. After reading the thread titled “Join the ITJB Challenge” and seeing the activity and enthusiasm generated by the book,  I’m disappointed by what I will have to say.  It is obvious that there is much interest in replicating  the breads of old. Now that I have had a chance to look more carefully, I’m shocked that this book is loaded with so many errors. Point taken that every technical book has errors. This one certainly fits nicely at the top of that list.

A few examples;
On page 12 at the bottom, the author  says, "follow the recipes exactly as printed". This should be the first change on the errata list. Page 62 has a formula for a quick rye sour. It calls for ¼ tsp of Instant dry yeast, or 3 grams. In my kitchen a teaspoon of IDY has always weighed 3 grams. That’s a significant difference which would change the outcome if I followed the metric weights.  

Other  examples; page 73, 1-1/2 tsp of IDY weighs .6 Oz or 18g. On page 103, the same item and amount weighs half that at .3Oz. and 8g.  On the same page, 2 large eggs weigh 4 Oz or 100g. On the prior page (101) a single egg weighs 1.3 Oz or 35g. I understand eggs are hard to scale but the book should use the same weights for the same ingredient throughout. A 30% variation in the amount could make a difference.

On Page 73, a Tablespoon of table salt weighs 6 grams. Really, my teaspoon of table salt weighs 6g. Elsewhere in the book the weight of this common item changes back to other amounts. Not to pick apart every recipe but for me to be able to trust the book as written or for that matter even with the “errata”, there needs to be consistency in each recipe as to what the ingredients weigh. I looked at the errata and I didn’t see any changes in the weight columns that reflect an error in calculating based on volumes. So these errors are not noted in the errata sheet. The reader is left trying to make sense of the recipe when the values may be considerably off.

On page 74 the Old School Jewish Deli Rye is a bread I have made and most recently with the Tzitzelbroyt changes. It’s  delicious bread that turned out wonderfully using the grams column. The bakers percents listed with the recipe are totally confusing. Each of the prep stage recipes use percents based on the finished product rather than that particular build. It would have been much more helpful to show an overview of the total recipe for the purposes of building a larger batch. Showing 7% as the weight of the water in a pre ferment isn’t very helpful IMO. They seem to get it right on more simple 1 day recipes but the more complex, multi stage recipes are needlessly complicated.

The above examples are but a few of many inconsistencies and errors I found in just a few minutes. Yes, there are some recipes that are printed so they work. Yes there are some beautiful breads that can be baked using some common sense and experience or by trial and error. The fact that these errors exist is evidence that it is hard to publish a good book.

The question then is, would I recommend or give this book to someone wanting to learn about these kinds of baked goods?  Knowing  that many of the recipes cannot be baked as written  or without digging through a long list of errors and, knowing about the inconsistencies, I’d have to limit the recommendation or gift to non bakers who would enjoy the history lesson for what it is. If I wanted to help a friend learn to bake Jewish breads, I would look to Glezer or Greenstein for an introduction to this arena.

Eric

I just posted this review to my blog at The German Foodie.

“The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”, Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart

“The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” is published by Ten Speed Press, (P.O. Box 7123, Berkeley/CA 94707; http://www.tenspeed.com). 2001. ISBN 978-158008-268-6, 304 pages, hardcover. List price $35.00 plus shipping.

If there is one book I would recommend hands-down for anybody who wants to learn bread baking the right way, then it is “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”, lovingly called “BBA” on some bread baking forums I frequent.

Reinhart begins with an overview over gear and ingredients, including why some are to be preferred over others. My favorite aspect in this part of the book was the instructions on how to make improvised proofing bowls (p.36). I own several proofing baskets myself and am keenly aware how insanely expensive they are, so this is a good, low-cost alternative.

Most people will be tempted to skip the part about baker’s math (pp. 41), but I would urge them to read on. Baker’s percentages, while odd to get used to, are still the best measurement system when it comes to bread. After using them for a while, just looking at the percentages will tell the artisan baker all he/she needs to know about the general characteristics of the dough.

For anybody who has been wondering about general classifications of certain kinds of bread, pages 46 and 47 contain a graph listing the most popular breads and where they fall, from dough characteristics to rising method. More important to the novice baker, however, is the explanation on the twelve stages of bread, starting on page 48.

I am a strong autodidactic learner, and every good how-to (cook) book should include a section like this. Armed with this knowledge, if you cannot churn out amazing bread afterwards, you should maybe consider another past-time – it does not get any more comprehensive than this.

In this context, BBA includes some very helpful photographs on shaping bread (pp. 72). The one criticism I have here is that Reinhart’s way of shaping pretzels (top of page 80) is – sorry to say it – PATHETIC. I have never seen such a sorry excuse for a pretzel; children can do a better job than this. I would strongly recommend a complete redo of the related photographs.

Yet, this is the only real sore point about this book, which I otherwise love. The formulas are clearly written, and while I would have appreciated a column with grams included in the recipes, at least BBA is listing both volume and weight (the latter albeit in decimal ounces, when most smaller scales I have seen will give them in fractions – but hey, it is a start).

Unlike “Crust & Crumb” (featuring an awkward two-column layout), the recipes are listed in one large column with a tiny side column containing commentary, baker’s percentages and tips. The formulas are written out in clear paragraphs organized in ordered lists, and the first sentence of each paragraph starts with bold letters giving you the first idea of what is coming. Many recipes also include “grace notes” at the end, often disclosing the kind of information you would have to hunt the Internet for, like making your own herb oil for focaccia (p. 163).

Also, many recipes are accompanied by “how to” photographs as appropriate, for example when it comes to shaping the bread a certain way. And speaking of photographs, the majority of pictures included in the book are really nice and in color, unlike “Crust & Crumb”, which relies on awkward drawings for most of its illustrations (with the exception of some color photographs in the center of the book).

It seems inevitable, though, that every cook book contains a few recipes which, for the life of you, will not work, no matter how closely you follow them. BBA is no exception. Just like you would buy a CD for the one single and a handful of other songs you really liked, and accept that the other songs were not really your cup of tea, I guess one has to accept that the same applies to recipe books.

There are a few recipes in this book which I have not been able to replicate ever, no matter how faithfully I stuck to the letter of the formula. Neither have other people I have talked to, which would indicate an inherent issue with the recipe itself, not operator-related error. For some this only meant that some aspects of the method were erroneous, like using a stamp for making Kaiser rolls (p. 177). Interestingly enough, the photograph featured on page 176 shows rolls that have been hand-knotted or (dare I say it?) machined – but there is no way they were baked using a stamp. I should know, because I bought a stamp following what I read in BBA, and more or less tossed it the first time I tried it out. What does yeasted dough do when it is proofed, and later baked, after being stamped? Even when it is placed, as directed on its face for proofing? Exactly.

Other recipes that did not impress me very much were the one for pumpernickel rye (p. 246) or the one for ciabatta (p. 136). But most of those are outweighed by the parts that make this book indispensable in every serious bread baker’s collection – both regarding what I have outlined above, and by some other formulas in this book, like the one for lavash crackers (p. 178) or Vienna bread (p.261).

Get baking! :)

“The Cheese Board Collective Works”
By the Cheese Board Collective, with a Foreword by Alice Waters

“The Cheeseboard Collective Works” is published by Ten Speed Press, (P.O. Box 7123,
Berkeley/CA 94707; http://www.tenspeed.com). 2003. ISBN 1-58008-419-2, 230
pages, paperback, $21.95 plus shipping.

I acquired this book on a recommendation by a friend who had been using it for years and swore by it. She told me the pizza crust was the best she had ever made, and that pretty much any recipe in this book she had tried had worked for her.

I was looking for a book with accessible recipes that had been tried and tried again successfully, and I found it in this one. The Cheese Board has been in existence since the late 1960s, and the recipes contained in this book are the fruit of their labor, trial and error, and just plainly owing to the taste and ability of the employee owners (after all, the Cheese Board IS a collective). In that sense, this book is not only a cookbook, but also a timeline and an account of the people who created them. Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse, sums it up in her foreword: “compassionate collectivism, expressed through food”.

I would not recommend this book for somebody starting out and looking for an introductory “how to” book for beginners. This book suits somebody who is already baking and is searching for something a little different. “Collective Works” does feature some instructional pages, explaining ingredients, equipment and so forth, but the way it is laid out, it is not primarily an instructional book (for example, hardly any of the recipes feature photographs or drawings of the finished product, much less intermediate steps), but a collection of recipes.

Chapters are organized by type of baking: morning fare, yeasted breads, sourdough breads, rye breads, holidays etc. The chapter about “the cheese counter” was likely included because the Collective started out as a cheese store, but to the baker it is virtually worthless, unless you are looking for an introduction to types of cheese and how to combine them on platters. There are a handful of cheese breads etc. featured here, but they could have easily been included in a different chapter and the cheese spreads omitted.

The last chapter is devoted to pizza, which has legendary status in and around Berkeley/CA where the Collective is located. We have seen first-hand on a visit there that people literally line up for the “pizza of the day” – for there was only one kind, always vegetarian, just like there was only one kind of salad (the only choice the customers had was how much of each they wanted and what kind of drink to go with it).

I have tried several recipes from this book, from challah to hot cross buns to multi-grain bread, and they have all turned out fabulously, with the exception of their sourdough barm starter. The latter has never worked for me, so I am using one from a different book/author in my baking.

What I like about this book are the grainy black-and-white photographs, which fit the character and design perfectly. The anecdotes interspersed throughout, along with remarks at the beginning of each recipe give “Collective Works” an authenticity rooted as much in the present as in the past that most other books of the kind lack. The reader can tell these recipes have grown over time, they have been tweaked until everybody was satisfied they were just so.

The pizza crust is indeed the best I have ever made; it turns out every time and has gotten rave reviews. Yet it was interesting that when we tried the “real thing” right there in Berkeley, the pizza we were eating was actually nothing like what I had been producing from the book. To be truthful, we were all a little disappointed, and I can only attribute the difference to the fact that a commercial recipe baked on a commercial setup is not necessarily congruent with
the “residential” version, provided we were all working from the same foundation.

I would suggest that when the next edition of this book is published, its layout is changed as well, so it becomes more accessible. The two columns are awkward, and one literally has to read every recipe a couple of times in order not to miss details, as it is not laid out in a way that gives you clear step-by-step instructions, instead of crowded paragraphs. As that is the only shortcoming I could find, however, I can recommend this book to anybody who loves bread, bread baking, or simply baking.

PS: I LOVE their discount policy:

 “Crust & Crumb”, Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers by Peter Reinhart “Crust & Crumb” is published by Ten Speed Press, (P.O. Box 7123, Berkeley/CA 94707; http://www.tenspeed.com). 1998. ISBN 1-58008-003-0, 210 pages, hardcover, $29.95 plus shipping.

No sooner did I buy this book from amazon.com (for, I should add, a few dollars less than the list price) when the publisher came out with the 2006 edition. I am nevertheless reviewing the one I have as I am assuming that there are still valid points in such an effort compared to the latest edition. Checking out the “look inside” preview on amazon, not much seems to have REALLY changed, just the photograph on the cover is a little darker and more close-up than the prior edition; the content seems to be roughly untouched.

“Crust & Crumb” is the book I started bread baking with, that is, started it in earnest. I had been looking for a book that would give me the fundamentals of good bread baking, along with a few doable recipes. I did not even look for “world-class”. This one does both, albeit with some caveats.

But first things first.

Over the course of nine chapters, Peter Reinhart lays out the fundamentals of bread baking. He starts out with what he believes the characteristics of a good bread are, then moves on to discuss types of bread and their appearances and tastes. While I, having grown up in one of the world’s foremost bread countries in the heart of Europe, bordering other countries with great bread – Germany – was familiar with all of them, I know from my experience talking to others here in the Midwest that many people could not tell a focaccia from any other flatbread, even if their lives depended on it.

More important to me and any other baker is what he lays out next, the crucial concepts and master techniques of bread baking. These are

1. There is a difference between “yeasted” and “leavened” bread. “Leavened” breads in Reinhart’s lingo are those leavened without the addition of commercially available yeast, such as sourdough breads.

2. Nearly everything that a professional bakery does can be replicated, to some degree, at home. I know this to be true, because I used his books at home first, then “translated” them to commercial equipment, and now I am baking at home once again with those same concepts.

3. Bread machines are tools that simulate in one device steps done by many machines in professional bakeries. Again, point taken – a bread machine is at the same time a kneading, proofing and baking device, and for those without time and/or space a perfect tool to making good bread without the hassle.

4. There are many ways to make world-class bread. When we started to develop our own recipes and methods, based among others on Reinhart’s books, we built on some of his and other people’s concepts and methods, but they all arrive at the same product if done right: awesome bread.

As far as the techniques, Reinhart first discusses ingredients, then moves on to kneading and shaping, proofing and scoring, and lastly baking the bread. My take on ingredients is that the BAKER must find the ones he/she is comfortable with, and this part at first is a little overwhelming. However, Reinhart gives a good overview over what is available, and I ended up using whole wheat flour whenever the recipe called for unbleached all-purpose flour, and with extremely good results.

Chapter 2 discusses the three fundamental pre-ferments – poolish, biga and pâte fermentée – and gives a few recipe examples using each. The French Bread II using pâte fermentée is what I started with, and it is truly the best bread I have ever had. I now make two loaves from this recipe, proofing them in bannetons or “brotforms” (available at http://www.brotform.com) and baking them according to Reinhart’s hearth oven method. They turn out great every time.

The rest of the book is devoted to sourdough (chapter 3), multigrain bread (chapter 4) and other popular breads. In the middle of the book the reader will find some color photographs of bread made from recipes in the book.

The bottom line:

What I like about this book is that it is relatively accessible. Reinhart explains in layman’s terms the fundamentals of bread baking, as well as the connection between them and the bread the baker will see when using a recipe. This is important if a bread does not turn out as expected, be that in appearance, texture or something else. For a consummate autodidactic like me, this is indispensable. I also found that the recipes are easy to follow and most of them give good results (with a few exceptions, but I do not own ONE recipe book where absolutely all of them are fool-proof). Most importantly, it contained the formula I ended up using successfully for a sourdough barm.

For me, however, the negatives prevail and had I to do it over, I would buy “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” instead. The “Apprentice” basically gives you everything this book gives you, but better.

The book is laid out in an awkward two-column style that has not changed with the 2006 edition. I find it harder to follow than the “Apprentice”, which is laid out in one large column, with everything not immediately concerning the recipe in the sidebar. This book also uses drawings for illustrating basic techniques, which I find harder to discern than the photographs in the “Apprentice”. Lastly, some things do not compute for me, such as the measurements for the recipes. It is not that the base recipe for, say, the pâte fermentée gives you almost a pound of pre-ferment more than needed for the recipe, but not enough to make one more entire recipe.

When I weigh out, for example, the ingredients for the French Bread II, according to Reinhart I am using 3.5 cups of bread flour, which he equates to 16 ounces (or one American pound or 453.59 grams), but which, in actuality, weighs 508 grams. Depending on how you measure it, you consequently end up with three different recipes. That may sound anal-retentive – after all, what is 50 grams - but depending on the recipe/ingredient and equipment it CAN make a crucial difference.

Last but not least, there are some inaccuracies here and there that I would not have expected from somebody with such big a stature in the bread baking world. The major one for me is that Reinhart recommends misting the proofing baskets, should you use them, with cooking spray (page 42). I have to assume that he means plastic ones, as the wicker bannetons or brotforms we own would most certainly be ruined by such a treatment. Yet, he does not make that clear.

So, my recommendation is to skip this book and acquire the “Apprentice” instead, if you are looking for a comprehensive book to start with. There is on the one hand too much overlap between them, and too many negatives with this one to make it worth buying both.

I just got my hands on a nice new baking book, Baking Artisan Bread by Johnson & Wales University baking and pastry instructor Ciril Hitz.

The format of the book feels quite familiar to anyone who has read The Bread Baker's Apprentice: a section on ingredients, followed by a section on equipment, followed by a section on techniques. There is also a brief section on the 10 steps of baking, not as in depth as Peter's twelve stages of baking, but a useful introduction for people unfamiliar with the process. Then the recipe section.

The recipes section is where things get a bit different. Hitz organizes the recipes around ten core formula, each of which is used in a few variations. So, for example, Hitz includes a Pain de Mie (white sandwich bread) formula then follows it up with a Cinnamon Spice Swirl Bread recipe, a Raisin Roll recipe, and a Picnic Roll recipe, all based on the Pain de Mie. Doing so shows the reader how mastering a few core doughs opens up limitless variations.

The ten core formula provide a decent variety of recipes: Baguette Dough, Ciabatta Dough, Whole Wheat Dough, Bagel Dough, Pizza Dough, Challah Dough, Croissant Dough. This book doesn't get into the world of Sourdough.

The appendices are short but quite helpful. They include a nice baking timeline and a useful troubleshooting guide.

Also included with the book is a DVD. There are some nice clips of preshaping a round, shaping and scoring a baguette, and rolling up croissant dough. My one complaint is the DVD's brevity: even including credits it comes in under a half an hour.

The photography in the book is by Ron Manville, who took the photos in The Bread Baker's Apprentice and Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. The intro is by Jeffrey Hamelman and the back cover includes a quote by Peter Reinhart. So you know Hitz is a credible baker.

Baking Artisan Bread is quite reasonably priced. It isn't as authoritative as The Bread Baker's Apprentice or Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread, but it would make a nice gift for a budding baker.

I can see why Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking was such a hot seller this holiday season: if you know someone who was inspired to try bread baking by Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread and is now hooked, this book is the perfect gift for them. Shrewd marketing by Thomas Dunne Press.

The "revolution" spoken of in the title is a low-knead, delayed fermentation technique very similar to the famous no-knead technique. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François take it one step further and suggest refrigerating the dough to stretch the fermentation out for a number of days. The longer and slower the fermentation, the better the flavor.

Folks here might be interested in this article

http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25351-2645701,00.html

which is a review of a book on the history of French bread. Lots of info re commercial use of sourdough.