I have come to regular bread baking only recently but my wife, who has always been the baker in the house, has leaned heavily on Bernard Clayton’s Complete Book of Breads over the years.
Yesterday I found a used copy of Linda Collister's 'Flavoured Bread'. I am a huge fan and very keen to try her honey nut loaf. I also love her 'The Complete Bread and Baking Book' As for new titles, 'Baking with Fortitude' by Dee Rettali (who uses a sourdough-like batter which is left to ferment, for her cakes, Chad Robertson's 'Bread Book' and 'Mooncakes and Milk Bread' by Kristina Cho are on my radar. I'm more of a devoted reader about and consumer of when it comes to bread although I do bake the more unusual kinds I can't buy here. I'd never bake a Scottish batch loaf though because my local baker does it so superbly.
I'm a huge fan of Jim Laheys My Bread. Use it for most of my breadmaking because it's just so easy and always comes out great.
My favourite aspirational baking book is "Der Duft von Frischem Brot" by Barbara van Melle which collects recipes from some of Austria's best bakers. It's really detailed and looks great but unfortunately is only available in german (afaik) and almost all recipes call for tons of different flours and are generally very complicated.
The spark was lit on my first and only visit to Tartine in SF. I remember sitting down with my sandwich, grabbing a display copy of his book on the way to my table, and reading through the introduction. I was kind of blown away. Oddly, I never went out and bought the book, likely because while I found it completely fascinating, I probably thought it was way beyond my abilities. My very first bread book was Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day, and I learned most of the basics from it. The other two books that were great for my learning were Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman and to a lesser degree the Advanced Bread and Pastry textbook that I found at my first bakery job, which my boss at the time encouraged me to use.
All the new fancy ones are nice and all, but I found a used copy of Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book which I immediately fell in love with. There isn't a ton of recipes in the sourdough realm, which is my preference, but that's my addition to the list.
My oldest bread book, and the one sitting beside me right now, is Beard on Bread. I just made Raw Apple Bread from it the other day, making 1.5x the recipe and dividing it over 3 mini-loaf pans, and giving 2 of them away. In grad school many years ago I’d bake up 4 or 5 double batches of different loaves in mini loaf pans and give several of them to various friends as Christmas gifts. The book has a lot of relatively simple bread recipes that are not time consuming and never fail. And are different. I haven’t tried his sourdough bread, though the recipe is interesting. 10-12 days to make the starter, adding a yeast mixture to it after 3 to 5 days, warning “If it really takes, it [the sour aroma] can drive you right out of the room.” Definitely my most used bread book.
I have to second Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread" as my favorite more technical/professional resource; it's a wealth of knowledge but he write with so much love for the craft. I also like Tara Jensen's "A Baker's Year," only one or two bread recipes but such a beautifully written baking cookbook. And "English Bread and Yeast Cookery" by Elizabeth David is a huge book with a ton of historical information to nerd out over.
Carol Field's The Italian Baker because of my boss many years ago, the brilliant baker, Karen Barker. Stanley Ginsberg's The Rye Baker and Tartine #3. Also I like the Bonci pizza book. All are super reliable and educational on the breads I'm interested in baking.
I have the Hamelman book, still working my way through and adding new techniques. I love his videos on KA. Long ago, my first breads came from Better Homes and Gardens. After sampling breads at Il Fornaio, I discovered the Italian Baker, which approaches processor, hand and mixer techniques as well as using a biga/starter. Baking With Julia is also a good resource. Some books are very intimidating, but great to read, such as Poilane and Tartine Bread. I have too many cookbooks, but if you write one Andrew, I will certainly own it!
During a 2019 trip to the Caucasus I became smitten with the delicious local breads: Armenian lavash hot from the tonir, and greens/herb-stuffed jingalov hats from Artsakh; Georgian cheese/egg-filled khachapuri, Svanetian meat-stuffed kubdari, and toné-baked honey-spiced raisin-studded nazuki (specialty of town of Surami); and Azeri qutab (filled/rolled flatbreads - I had some esp delicious ones in a garden stuffed with just-picked stinging nettles). Leahy/Lee/Zada’s 2019 “Lavash” cookbook is a good resource on AR breads/cooking (also, since an AR friend’s mom swears by it, I recently sprung for a vintage Soviet AR cookbook from 1971 — Armyanskaya Kulinariya / “Armenian Cooking” — but have yet to delve into recipes). For GE, Darra Goldstein has great khachapuri & other recipes in her seminal “Georgian Feast” (rev ed 2018); see also “Supra: A feast of Georgian cooking” by Tiko Tuskadze (2017). For AZ qutab I plan on trying recipes in Feride Buyuran’s “Pomegranates & Saffron” (2014), as well as another vintage Soviet cookbook I searched out (Azerbaidzhanskaya Kulinariya / “Azerbaijan Cookery” by Akhmed-Djabir Akhmedov, 1986). For the whole region, check out Naomi Duguid’s “Taste of Persia: A Cook’s Travels through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan” (2016).
It's hard to pick just one. I'm about even with Joe S. with too numerous to count cookbooks (TNTC). Other than websites, like yours, I use Beard on Bread with the torn cover and loose pages. 'Great Whole Grain Bread' by Beatrice Ojakangas and 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice' by Peter Reinhart are frequently used through the years. I have wanted to build an earth oven since reading Kiko Denzer's 'Build Your Own Earth Oven'.
Like a bunch of others on here I'm fairly new to bread baking, but I've leaned heavily on Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast. For a newbie it has just the right amount of detail and not so many recipes as to be overwhelming. Also picked up Brian Ford's New World Sourdough after realizing that most American bread-baking looks exclusively at Europe for inspiration and I was interested in someone drawing from other cultures. In Ford's case, Latin America. Highly recommend what he does in his book and on his website. Curious if others have non-Eurocentric books or resources they could steer me towards?
I like Lahey and Forkish, as I only recently started experimenting with sourdough but have been baking with yeast for years. I have Super Sourdough by James Morton, a Scot who was on an early season of the British baking show (I've only seen that one season). I like that one because it's conversational and low-key.
I was put off by sourdough for a long time because I like to freestyle, especially with different kinds of flour and stuff like nuts and seeds. I have generally done this with success in other baking realms including no-knead; I also like to drastically cut sugar because I don't like very sweet things. My baked goods would not be to everyone's taste, but they suit me very well.
I'm interested to see how far I can go with sourdough, but I do still find it intimidating. I'm grateful for online resources like this one, and I'm looking forward to seeing what others recommend. I'd love to get the recent Hamelman, but I need to see if I can sustain the commitment before shelling out that much money!
Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads was my first; recommended 30 years ago in the days of Prodigy (who remembers that?) on a bread baking group. I bought it specifically for the Corn Rye, which is not a cornmeal bread but instead the closest to the bakery Jewish rye in the NY/NJ area that I grew up with. That's the only recipe I use in the book, but the bread takes me back to my childhood.
Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day sees the most frequent use since those are the type I make most often. I actually have a proof copy (paperback) that I found at a used bookstore about a year after it was published.
For types I don't often make, and also because I've taken a bagel class with him and enjoy his writing style, Hamelman. I love that the recipes are in baker's percentages and, while technical, you can sense his love for the craft (and his sense of humor) in the recipe notes.
I always reference Advanced Bread and Pastry. I wish I could go back to SFBI and do their program again. When I want to dive back into some science, I find that text a great starting place. I also love Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman for jumping-off points for new formulas.
Don’t get me started! Bread books are a total dissipation for me. When I hear of a new one out, I say to myself: “I don’t need another bread book,” but end up buying it later anyway. They all have something to offer me! I’m a total bread nerd!
Here are some of the books that have influenced me the most, as you posed the question, Andrew:
The Chad Robertson Tartine Books (“Tartine Bread” and “Tartine N. 3”) are what started my baking obsession, first as a serious home baker, then as the proprietor of my micro-bakery, the Happy Monk Baking Company. The introduction in which Robertson spoke of his “imagined bread,” the one he dreamed of, which led to his famed country, Sourdough, got me hooked. The 35-page recipe (the process and theory) for that loaf was enticing and intimidating. I learned a great deal from that. I gained a lot of weight, too, with both of these books.
“My Bread” by Jim Lahey, the No-Knead recipe, inspired early confidence in breadmaking. The loaves were way better than store-bought and took about the same amount of time to bake it as a trip to the grocery store. I told friends this method was fail-safe.
“The Tassajara Bread Book” by Edward Espe Brown, which I bought in 1977, appealed to my Buddhist tendency, but I never had much success with the sponge method. I’ve since returned to it and still love the front parts of the book, the introduction, the “Composite of Kitchen Necessities,” and the general directions.
“Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes” by Jeffrey Hamelman is just a landmark! Like a textbook, but so much more with stories about his mentors and colourful descriptions of international bread. My second edition copy is dog-eared and stained, and now the third edition is getting as much consulting and recipe-testing.
I’ve got a deep love of rye bread, so Stanley Ginsberg’s “The Rye Baker” has meant a great deal to me, a survey of beautiful rye bread from all around the world.
Richard Miscovich’s “From the Wood-Fired Oven” has been a considerable influence and one of the main reasons I built a wood-fired cob oven and use it for baking all the bread for my micro-bakery.
Other ones I’ve enjoyed include Daniel Leader’s “Bread Alone” and “Living Bread.” Martin Philip’s “Breaking Bread: A Baker’s Journey Home” is terrific. “The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens,” though a little dated, helped with my wood-fired ambitions but also introduced some bakers I still admire.
Better cut it off before it’s too late!
The discussions here are invigorating, Andrew. Thanks for this! Sorry for not weighing in until now!
I have come to regular bread baking only recently but my wife, who has always been the baker in the house, has leaned heavily on Bernard Clayton’s Complete Book of Breads over the years.
Yesterday I found a used copy of Linda Collister's 'Flavoured Bread'. I am a huge fan and very keen to try her honey nut loaf. I also love her 'The Complete Bread and Baking Book' As for new titles, 'Baking with Fortitude' by Dee Rettali (who uses a sourdough-like batter which is left to ferment, for her cakes, Chad Robertson's 'Bread Book' and 'Mooncakes and Milk Bread' by Kristina Cho are on my radar. I'm more of a devoted reader about and consumer of when it comes to bread although I do bake the more unusual kinds I can't buy here. I'd never bake a Scottish batch loaf though because my local baker does it so superbly.
I'm a huge fan of Jim Laheys My Bread. Use it for most of my breadmaking because it's just so easy and always comes out great.
My favourite aspirational baking book is "Der Duft von Frischem Brot" by Barbara van Melle which collects recipes from some of Austria's best bakers. It's really detailed and looks great but unfortunately is only available in german (afaik) and almost all recipes call for tons of different flours and are generally very complicated.
The spark was lit on my first and only visit to Tartine in SF. I remember sitting down with my sandwich, grabbing a display copy of his book on the way to my table, and reading through the introduction. I was kind of blown away. Oddly, I never went out and bought the book, likely because while I found it completely fascinating, I probably thought it was way beyond my abilities. My very first bread book was Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day, and I learned most of the basics from it. The other two books that were great for my learning were Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman and to a lesser degree the Advanced Bread and Pastry textbook that I found at my first bakery job, which my boss at the time encouraged me to use.
All the new fancy ones are nice and all, but I found a used copy of Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book which I immediately fell in love with. There isn't a ton of recipes in the sourdough realm, which is my preference, but that's my addition to the list.
My oldest bread book, and the one sitting beside me right now, is Beard on Bread. I just made Raw Apple Bread from it the other day, making 1.5x the recipe and dividing it over 3 mini-loaf pans, and giving 2 of them away. In grad school many years ago I’d bake up 4 or 5 double batches of different loaves in mini loaf pans and give several of them to various friends as Christmas gifts. The book has a lot of relatively simple bread recipes that are not time consuming and never fail. And are different. I haven’t tried his sourdough bread, though the recipe is interesting. 10-12 days to make the starter, adding a yeast mixture to it after 3 to 5 days, warning “If it really takes, it [the sour aroma] can drive you right out of the room.” Definitely my most used bread book.
I have to second Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread" as my favorite more technical/professional resource; it's a wealth of knowledge but he write with so much love for the craft. I also like Tara Jensen's "A Baker's Year," only one or two bread recipes but such a beautifully written baking cookbook. And "English Bread and Yeast Cookery" by Elizabeth David is a huge book with a ton of historical information to nerd out over.
Carol Field's The Italian Baker because of my boss many years ago, the brilliant baker, Karen Barker. Stanley Ginsberg's The Rye Baker and Tartine #3. Also I like the Bonci pizza book. All are super reliable and educational on the breads I'm interested in baking.
I have the Hamelman book, still working my way through and adding new techniques. I love his videos on KA. Long ago, my first breads came from Better Homes and Gardens. After sampling breads at Il Fornaio, I discovered the Italian Baker, which approaches processor, hand and mixer techniques as well as using a biga/starter. Baking With Julia is also a good resource. Some books are very intimidating, but great to read, such as Poilane and Tartine Bread. I have too many cookbooks, but if you write one Andrew, I will certainly own it!
During a 2019 trip to the Caucasus I became smitten with the delicious local breads: Armenian lavash hot from the tonir, and greens/herb-stuffed jingalov hats from Artsakh; Georgian cheese/egg-filled khachapuri, Svanetian meat-stuffed kubdari, and toné-baked honey-spiced raisin-studded nazuki (specialty of town of Surami); and Azeri qutab (filled/rolled flatbreads - I had some esp delicious ones in a garden stuffed with just-picked stinging nettles). Leahy/Lee/Zada’s 2019 “Lavash” cookbook is a good resource on AR breads/cooking (also, since an AR friend’s mom swears by it, I recently sprung for a vintage Soviet AR cookbook from 1971 — Armyanskaya Kulinariya / “Armenian Cooking” — but have yet to delve into recipes). For GE, Darra Goldstein has great khachapuri & other recipes in her seminal “Georgian Feast” (rev ed 2018); see also “Supra: A feast of Georgian cooking” by Tiko Tuskadze (2017). For AZ qutab I plan on trying recipes in Feride Buyuran’s “Pomegranates & Saffron” (2014), as well as another vintage Soviet cookbook I searched out (Azerbaidzhanskaya Kulinariya / “Azerbaijan Cookery” by Akhmed-Djabir Akhmedov, 1986). For the whole region, check out Naomi Duguid’s “Taste of Persia: A Cook’s Travels through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan” (2016).
It's hard to pick just one. I'm about even with Joe S. with too numerous to count cookbooks (TNTC). Other than websites, like yours, I use Beard on Bread with the torn cover and loose pages. 'Great Whole Grain Bread' by Beatrice Ojakangas and 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice' by Peter Reinhart are frequently used through the years. I have wanted to build an earth oven since reading Kiko Denzer's 'Build Your Own Earth Oven'.
Like a bunch of others on here I'm fairly new to bread baking, but I've leaned heavily on Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast. For a newbie it has just the right amount of detail and not so many recipes as to be overwhelming. Also picked up Brian Ford's New World Sourdough after realizing that most American bread-baking looks exclusively at Europe for inspiration and I was interested in someone drawing from other cultures. In Ford's case, Latin America. Highly recommend what he does in his book and on his website. Curious if others have non-Eurocentric books or resources they could steer me towards?
I like Lahey and Forkish, as I only recently started experimenting with sourdough but have been baking with yeast for years. I have Super Sourdough by James Morton, a Scot who was on an early season of the British baking show (I've only seen that one season). I like that one because it's conversational and low-key.
I was put off by sourdough for a long time because I like to freestyle, especially with different kinds of flour and stuff like nuts and seeds. I have generally done this with success in other baking realms including no-knead; I also like to drastically cut sugar because I don't like very sweet things. My baked goods would not be to everyone's taste, but they suit me very well.
I'm interested to see how far I can go with sourdough, but I do still find it intimidating. I'm grateful for online resources like this one, and I'm looking forward to seeing what others recommend. I'd love to get the recent Hamelman, but I need to see if I can sustain the commitment before shelling out that much money!
I have 3 favorites, each for a different reason.
Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads was my first; recommended 30 years ago in the days of Prodigy (who remembers that?) on a bread baking group. I bought it specifically for the Corn Rye, which is not a cornmeal bread but instead the closest to the bakery Jewish rye in the NY/NJ area that I grew up with. That's the only recipe I use in the book, but the bread takes me back to my childhood.
Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day sees the most frequent use since those are the type I make most often. I actually have a proof copy (paperback) that I found at a used bookstore about a year after it was published.
For types I don't often make, and also because I've taken a bagel class with him and enjoy his writing style, Hamelman. I love that the recipes are in baker's percentages and, while technical, you can sense his love for the craft (and his sense of humor) in the recipe notes.
I always reference Advanced Bread and Pastry. I wish I could go back to SFBI and do their program again. When I want to dive back into some science, I find that text a great starting place. I also love Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman for jumping-off points for new formulas.
Don’t get me started! Bread books are a total dissipation for me. When I hear of a new one out, I say to myself: “I don’t need another bread book,” but end up buying it later anyway. They all have something to offer me! I’m a total bread nerd!
Here are some of the books that have influenced me the most, as you posed the question, Andrew:
The Chad Robertson Tartine Books (“Tartine Bread” and “Tartine N. 3”) are what started my baking obsession, first as a serious home baker, then as the proprietor of my micro-bakery, the Happy Monk Baking Company. The introduction in which Robertson spoke of his “imagined bread,” the one he dreamed of, which led to his famed country, Sourdough, got me hooked. The 35-page recipe (the process and theory) for that loaf was enticing and intimidating. I learned a great deal from that. I gained a lot of weight, too, with both of these books.
“My Bread” by Jim Lahey, the No-Knead recipe, inspired early confidence in breadmaking. The loaves were way better than store-bought and took about the same amount of time to bake it as a trip to the grocery store. I told friends this method was fail-safe.
“The Tassajara Bread Book” by Edward Espe Brown, which I bought in 1977, appealed to my Buddhist tendency, but I never had much success with the sponge method. I’ve since returned to it and still love the front parts of the book, the introduction, the “Composite of Kitchen Necessities,” and the general directions.
“Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes” by Jeffrey Hamelman is just a landmark! Like a textbook, but so much more with stories about his mentors and colourful descriptions of international bread. My second edition copy is dog-eared and stained, and now the third edition is getting as much consulting and recipe-testing.
I’ve got a deep love of rye bread, so Stanley Ginsberg’s “The Rye Baker” has meant a great deal to me, a survey of beautiful rye bread from all around the world.
Richard Miscovich’s “From the Wood-Fired Oven” has been a considerable influence and one of the main reasons I built a wood-fired cob oven and use it for baking all the bread for my micro-bakery.
Other ones I’ve enjoyed include Daniel Leader’s “Bread Alone” and “Living Bread.” Martin Philip’s “Breaking Bread: A Baker’s Journey Home” is terrific. “The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens,” though a little dated, helped with my wood-fired ambitions but also introduced some bakers I still admire.
Better cut it off before it’s too late!
The discussions here are invigorating, Andrew. Thanks for this! Sorry for not weighing in until now!