The Bread Bible
by Rose Levy Beranbaum
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Book Reviews of The Bread Bible
Book Review: Wonderful book, odd reviews
Summary: 5 Stars
I find myself confused and surprised by some of the reviews already here. Myself, I have had perfect success every single time with this book, and I have made a great many of the breads -- some, like ciabatta and baguette, a great many times. So I read a bunch of the negative reviews to see if I could figure out where the problem lies. I have a few guesses.
First, this is a book on making bread her way, which means obsessive precision. If you do exactly what she says, in my experience, you will get spectacular results.
Second, you must discard your presuppositions and prior preferences. If you want to make bread the way you already make bread, this book will be quite irritating. If you want perfect success by doing it her way, this is the book for you.
Third, you really do have to read the text. I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy for people who get halfway through a recipe and discover that "rising time" refers to something quite specific, whereas there is an earlier period of preliminary rising that takes longer. Why didn't you read the recipe in advance?
Fourth, if you do read the text, you can very quickly start adapting and altering recipes to your taste. It means sitting down with a pencil and paper and calculating out altered weights in order to keep it all together. But once you've done it, you've got a new recipe that will work.
One thing I notice in many negative reviews is the word "should." Bread baking SHOULD be simple, or SHOULD be easy, or SHOULD require minimal fussing, or whatever. Why should it? This is what I mean about preconceptions: if you have strong preconceptions about how bread baking should be natural and flow from your hands or something, you're going to hate this book. If you want good bread and the hell with the myths, you'll like this book. But you do have to pay attention.
I started baking from this book because I was surrounded by "handmade organic artisanal whole-grain bread" that was leaden, tasteless, and expensive. Bread like that is made by people who think it's all about being natural. I have had perfect success with Birnbaum, and find that I can always plan things around the schedule she proposes, contrary to the negative remarks about timing and such: make the biga, sponge, poolish, or whatever, the night before; mix and go in the morning; shape and raise in the afternoon; bake in the early evening. What's so hard about that?
Anyway, ignore the negative reviews. Get this book, read the text, don't start a recipe until you've read it carefully and thoroughly, and do what she tells you. The results will be wonderful, every time.
Book Review: the proof is in the bread
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book after making pesto bread from The Herbfarm Cookbook (also an excellent book). When I took my pesto bread out of the oven, tapped the bottom, and heard the hollow sound that indicated the bread had turned out correctly, something grabbed ahold of me, and I knew I had to learn more about baking bread. I couldn't explain the excitement I felt at the abilty to create something delicious from such mundane ingredients. it's like magic!that being my sole attempt at bread making (excluding homemade pizza dough, which I put in a different catagory), Rose's book was a bit overwhelming at first. I read through all of the preliminary chapters on the hows and whys and all the different stages, feeling the same tingling fascination I had felt when I first started learning calculus. I guess I hadn't realized how mathematical and precise the "art" really is, or how appealing that would be to me. armed with all that knowledge, I decided to jump right in, and tried her cheddar loaf. her directions are laid out in clear, numbered steps, with instructions for both hand and machine mixing. ingredients are given by volume and weight, and each recipe is full of tips about when to add more water or flour, and what the dough / finished loaf should weigh. she has clear explanations and diagrams guiding you through any shaping. I never felt confused or at a loss, and even her descriptions of what the dough should feel like at different stages (something inherently difficult to convey without a physical demonstration) were incredibly helpful. basically, I felt informed, guided, and confident at every step of the process, and the end result was marvelous. the crust was golden and tasted intensely of cheddar, and the inside was crumbly and soft, just like bakery bread! even for a novice like me, this book delivers.
I just finished making her cinnamon raisin bread, and even though I know you're supposed to cool it for an hour before you eat it, I impatiently sliced in at ate some right out of the oven. it, like all the other breads I have tried from this book, was fantastic. I can't wait to eat it for breakfast in the morning, and the second loaf may not make it to the freezer.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interesting in learning more about making bread at home, with one caveat - these recipes are time consuming. not so much in the actual, hands on work, but in the rising and baking time. so they're perfect for a day spent working or lounging around the house, when you can keep an eye on the dough as it lazily rises.
Book Review: interesting techniques, lovely recipes
Summary: 5 Stars
I've really enjoyed using this book. In a world flooded with bread books, it still manages to make its voice heard around other books I love like Daniel Leader's Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers, Carol Fields's The Italian Baker or Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking.
Before purchasing, I started by reading the negative reviews. Why would people not like this book? In a number of cases, reviewers pointed out that it was not a book for beginners. Absolutely true, but I'm not a beginner so I passed over those. The most challenging review came from the baker who said he had many years' experience baking artisan breads but could not make the foccaccia work. I've had some experience with high hydration doughs, so I figured this would be a good place to begin. 90% hydration dough is something I have down pat, but I've never tried 113%. If you read the instructions, and use the paddle of the mixer instead of the dough hook, it works as described; inaccurate reading, and 30 minutes of dough hook did nothing but frustrate me and finally get me to re-read the instructions and substitute the paddle. What emerged was not the disgusting glob the other reviewer described, but a light, airy dough, which gave rise to a delicate and quite delicious foccaccia.
I've found with several of the recipes I've made that they work exactly as described, but Ms. Beranbaum's taste buds and mine do not always coincide. So I've needed to tweak percentages of rye to whole wheat, or salt, or some other fine point -- but that's par for the course, not a criticism of the book. The techniques and the basic percentages work beautifully, and provide a wonderful basis from which to experiment for one's own tastes.
For serious home bakers with a good comfort level, this is a great addition. For those just setting out on the journey, I'd have to agree that it's not a good place to begin.
Book Review: Overly Complicated, Overtly Dictatorial
Summary: 2 Stars
First the good parts. Ms. Beranbaum's Bible has lovely pictures and illustrations and an excellent variety of recipes. One appreciates the ingredients in volume, ounces and grams, something too rare in modern baking books. If you have some rudimentary knowledge of baking, you can find a lot of wonderful recipes you can adopt to make lovely breads. That being said, the ingredients and recipes are far from simple, unnecessarily complicated and time consuming. For example, when she has basic flour in any recipe, it is "use only Gold Medal, King Arthur or Pillsbury." Why? These common generic flours are nothing special and pale in comparison to widely available Bob's Red Mill, Great River Organic, King Arthur organic or a host of local flours like Champlain Valley in upstate New York. This is but one example. She always wants water at room temperature, which is completely unnecessary for a long rising. It is more important NOT to use hard tap water, which she overlooks. Then she settles on using a mixer or hand kneading, when either is an acceptable method for most breads. According to her, you can make Pugliese bread only with a mixer. Nonsense. Her timing and risings are way off base. For the most part, there is no need for the multiple risings and the slavish times. Look at the aforementioned Pugliese bread. Make Biga, wait 6 hours to 3 days, rest the dough for 2 minutes, pull, cover for 30 minutes, pull, wait 2 hours at 75 to 80 degrees (Why? Whose house is like that?), shape, wait 1.5 hours, bake 5 minutes, lower the temperature, bake some more, turn and then stick a thermometer into the bread until it reads about 205 degrees. None of this is necessary. Besides, who has time for that? Make the Biga, wait overnight, knead by hand, wait and hour or more, punch down, shape, wait an hour or more and bake. That's all, and I guarantee the home bakers in Puglia do it just that way. All of her recipes have this ridiculous view of baking and quite frankly take away the fun of this lovely art. For my money, anything by Daniel Leader, Peter Reinhart or even the new Chad Robinson/Eric Wolfinger book are far superior.Book Review: Rose has done it again... created a classic, that is
Summary: 5 Stars
Cookbook author/humorist Ann Hodgman once wrote, of Rose Levy Berenbaum's masterpiece The Cake Bible, that perhaps The Gideons should leave this "bible" in hotel bedrooms instead of that other, better-known one. Hodgman has a point. I have baked extensively from both of Berenbaum's previous "bibles," on cake and on pastry, and have yet to come up with a dud.Since we're talking about bibles here, clearly Berenbaum finds that God is in the details. She gives clear, concise explanations of the "whys" of baking without ever getting tedious. I have been baking regularly for nearly thirty years, and yet in my first read-through of The Bread Bible, I learned at least a dozen facts that I hadn't previously known, and yet made perfect sense. For example, the inclusion of Wondra bleached, granulated flour (not a typical staple among serious bakers) in her Butter Popovers eliminate the resting period that the batter typically must undergo before baking.
Her books also inspire: A round, Gruyere-spiked cheese bread baked in a souffle dish--which Berenbaum whimsically names, "The Stud Muffin"--will send me out today on a quick trip for a couple of necessary, missing ingredients.
Berenbaum's recipes run the gamut from simple "quick" breads to more time-consuming (but hardly more difficult) artisanal loaves. She also provides sources for ingredients and equipment. This tome, with its gorgeous photographs and numerous line drawings, might intimidate some fledgling bakers, but don't let it! If it does, I suggest The King Arthur Flour's Baker's Companion. However, true breadheads are justified in wanting both.
Rose Levy Berenbaum's passion both for detail and for routinely spectacular results reminds me of Maida Heatter, whose equally comprehensive and delightful baking books inspired beginning bakers like me more than twenty years ago. Heatter's books have withstood the test of time. I'm sure Berenbaum's Bread Bible will become as annotated and batter-spattered as Heatter's books are in my kitchen. There's no higher praise than that!