any recommendations? My 23 year old D loves cooking and baking, but hasn’t baked bread. So, I’m looking for something for the novice who is an enthusiastic cook/baker.
I make a lot of breads , but don’t have any cookbooks specifically for breads. I would be curious to find out too because my oldest daughter is a really great cook , but the one thing she has not yet tried is bread baking
I found one that looks promising–Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish.
“Ratio” by Michael Ruhlman is a great book. I first ran across it at the CIA (Culinary Institute) gift shop.
Although it has some basic recipes it really is a primer to allow you to make just about any type of baked good. Most baked goods are made up of very few ingredients (flour, liquid, egg, sugar, fat) and the difference lies in the ratios and the ingredients incorporation. Interesting reading even if you don’t bake much. It certainly takes the mystery out of baking different products and teaches enough so you can experiment on your own. Working with ratios rather than specific amounts in a recipe also lets you change the batch size easily.
It also covers sauces, stocks,custards, thickening agents. Just a handy book!
The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook I bake a lot of bread and love this cookbook. And I love KAF in particular. They have an 800# baker’s hotline and their webpage has great recipes and many “how tos” via their blog.
Let google be your friend and look for FB groups such as Universal Bread or Tartine. Google terms such as sourdough starter or no-knead breads. Also check names like Eric Kayser, Chad Robertson, or for the truly inspired the master of all, Monsieur Calvel. Forkish is good and so is Jeffrey Hamelman. Stick to those names and you will be golden.
There are tons of videos on YouTube in the genre of https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL02A67F155E9A6668
Ignore and run away from any book that list recipes in cups. For bread baking, following recipes in cups is a recipe for disaster, even if Julia tried. Bread baking is about weights and not volumes. It is also all about grams since it is easier than the oz system and more precise.
The sourdough starter is currently in its cult phase and might not be worth the investment in time and effort to get your own starter. Also the sourdough taste is not for everyone. Many think the San Francisco version is great but many end up with an overly acidic mess. Most amateurs do!
Everyone can get a great bread by baking it in a Le Creuset cast iron pot. Buy a digital scale and add 65 to 75% percent of water to your flour. That means for 500 grams of flour, add 325 to 375 grams of water, 1 gram of salt, and yeast to taste. You will have to play with the yeast but start at the same level of the salt. Do not exceed 2% of salt. A KA is helpful but many are following the no-kneading recipes with great results. Bulk fermentation is essential. Regular AP flour offers a good start and there is no need to invest in specialty flours in the beginning.
Again, there are countless sites and FB groups dedicated to the “new” bread baking.
Beard on Bread. It’s still in print, and you can’t get any better than James Beard.
^ Yes you can 
And this is why:
http://www.jamesbeard.org/recipes/home-style-white-bread
Check the suggested quantity of flour and suggested measurement.
maybe try asking the question on Chowhound - a lot of very knowledgeable people post there.
Shirley Corriher’s “Bakewise.” http://www.amazon.com/BakeWise-Successful-Baking-Magnificent-Recipes/dp/1416560785
While the recipes are wonderful, the real value in this book is all of the information about the chemistry of baking that Shirley Corriher imparts in a way that even I can understand and enjoy. (In high school my pride took a hard blow when my GPA was marred by a C in chemistry. The teacher knew my mom and took pity on me; I actually deserved a D.) Try to catch her on a rerun of Alton Brown’s Good Eats. She’s a hoot.
I also have Beard on Bread…and I happen to like a lot of the recipes in it.
Peter Reinhardt http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IK8PV4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1
however, http://www.thefreshloaf.com/ will probably be even better.
I started with a basic recipe from Pillsbury. I use a variety of recipes now. I don’t weigh my ingredients, I measure them. My bread (more than 100 loaves in 2013; I bake less often now) turns out very well.
A Classic http://www.amazon.com/Tassajara-Bread-Book-Edward-Brown/dp/1590308360
This is the book that most modern bread baking is based on. It is still one of the best bread books out there.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with James Beard’s recipe for that style of bread.
I baked all of our bread for years, and I never weighed anything. I measured. Roughly. Because the amount of flour depends on the humidity, the type of flours you are using, what you are adding to it (eggs, wheat germ, grains, etc), and so forth. For that kind of bread, you start with a basic amount of flour, and add more as needed while mixing and kneading. What is required is a feel for what the dough should be like, not precise measurements. IMHO, the best way to learn how to make bread is to have someone who knows how show you.
I recently encountered this method of making a crusty bread. (Maybe on CC, I don’t recall.) It is amazingly simple, requires no bread-making skills at all, and has a fantastic result.
That last link is an Internet copy of no knead bread as originally published in NYT. I make a lot of no knead as I like the taste and texture of a slow overnight rise. I have done the quick no kneed which is nice when you want a 4ish hour loaf but it isn’t as good. I also have no love for kneading and my counters are too high for it to be comfortable. I do have a KA mixer I will need with.
I bought an excellent condition used copy of Ratio for $1 plus shipping recently, I like the idea but I haven’t warmed to it. He has an app too. I haven’t noticed it has bread and I see that is just a couple of pages. I wouldn’t get it for that purpose. But I am going to explore this book a bit more. It uses a lot of eggs but I use them little because of an allergy here. Maybe I will make a batch of pastry cream just for me.
I second the King Arthur book. I use recipes from the website a lot. I have an old fashioned flour book and I would get the one mentioned above instead. I started making a great yeast end pretzle from there.
Peter Reinhardt books are great for the serious bread baker. The Bread Bakers Apprentice is a fantastic teaching tool, it has everything you want about methods, pre ferments etc. this won both the James Beard and the IACP book awards. There is a fantastic variety of styles breads, rolls, bagels and crackers. I also have his whole grain bread book. This would be a great book, highly recommended.
After reading the pasta thread, I want to buy artisan bread in five minutes a day. 2 people posted a recipe from it a and it sounds awesome. I’m also interested in the healthy bread version by the same authors. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250018285?keywords=artisan%20bread%20in%20five%20minutes%20a%20day&qid=1447656478&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
Thanks for this re: crusty bread! Much appreciated.
I’ve only just started weighing incredients vs. measuring. My bread is generally quite successful, including sour dough. I do like that online KAF recipes list incredients both ways.
The suggestion to use weights versus volumes was directly related to the original question. Why should a novice start on the wrong foot? Experienced bakers might have a while rely on measurements when using the same flour over and over again.
You mentioned that the amount of flour depends on the humidity and there lies the entire issue. Different flours absorb humidity differently and that is a fact recognized in many countries that have more than AP and Bread flour with a sparkling of organic flours tossed in for good measures. All in all, it is much easier to buy a cheap digital scale and learn why the recipes might not work well and come out differently from the posted recipes. The “adding the water” as needed is a hard concept for a novice baker who might not understand why the hydration of bread might vary from 60 to 110% of the flour weight depending on the method.
Regarding the posted recipe – one that works as it is extremely forgiving-- it is an obvious adaptation from a recipe that was shared using weights! Google SFBI or Chad Robertson from Tartine for further digging into the world of baking bread in an Dutch Oven.
In today’s age, with thousands of recipes floating on the web (many with videos) and a wealth of good books, there are no reason to cling to the past century and use books written for consumers who grew up eating Wonder or Bimbo bread.
I learned to bake bread using Joy of Cooking, back in the late '60s. It’s really not nearly as hard as people want to make it out to be. Good quality flour makes more difference than anything else. (I use a mixture of Bob’s Red Mill Graham flour (nutty taste) and Bob’s Red Mill unbleached white.) Here’s my recipe:
1 pound Graham flour
1 pound white flour
1 packet yeast
3 or 4 TB honey or sugar
1 TB salt (no, that’s not a typo) (you can use less if you want)
Stir dry ingredients together. Now add liquid (water or milk–you can add an egg to the liquid if you want) and stir, just until the whole thing starts to come together as a dough. Stir and add some more liquid until you have a dough. In my experience, that’s around 2 cups. More or less. Think Playdough. Once it’s dough, let it sit in the bowl for a while to let the flour absorb the moisture. Dump onto floured, clean surface. Knead it (lots of videos out there on how to knead bread) until it’s smooth. You can sprinkle water on it if it’s too stiff or add a bit more flour if it’s too soft. Put it back in the bowl. Let it rise for a while (lots of books will tell you not to let it fall back on itself, but I like the slightly sour taste you get when that happens, so I don’t worry about it). After it’s risen for a while (an hour or two) (or overnight), divide into two loaves to bake. You can use greased loaf pans or free form balls on a baking sheet. Or you can make flat rolls. Let the bread rise for a while–if you leave it too long, it will fall back on itself, and you can reshape it. Your goal is to have it be a little less than double just before baking.
Bake at 350 degrees F until nicely brown. Don’t be tempted to take it out too early. It will be too wet inside if you do. I use an instant-read thermometer and take it out at 205 degrees–but most people don’t have an instant-read thermometer.