Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes

THIS is the definitive guide for serious home bakers seeking a professional result. It is precisely the caliber of detailed information serious home bakers have demanded in order to reach their next plateau of bread baking excellence. This is unmistakably the most comprehensive bread book of its type on the market. I am so delighted with the results it has shown my own baking. As a serious and dedicated cook, I have never experienced such instant gratification and remarkable improvements in my own craft than is evidenced via the advice available from this extraordinary reference. Through dedicated effort, and much trial and effort; in the method of Nancy Silverman, - my sourdough eventually met the high criteria I set for it. I want my sourdough to taste like that I had on Fisherman's Wharf in the 1970's! Nevertheless, my ciabatta and country style loaves remained, in my opinion, sub-par. This book's detailed; professional instructions launched my country bread and ciabatta loaves to bakery status within only two passes! I am now able to go beyond my original benchmark and further tweak the percentages in BREAD to achieve what ever I want for this style of bread. It is such a wonderful experience! The first try did not deviate from BREAD's formula. The second pass was formulae - plus - experience, and that was the charm. We are simply blown-away at how something exponentially went from good to excellent in two batches. JEFFREY HAMELMAN, a former bakery owner has been baking professionally for thirty years. In 1998, he became the 76th Certified Master Baker in the United States. Unlike the other author of five bread books, Mr. Hamelman's book, Bread stays on point. There are detailed formulas. Each formula is charted in four versions: - U.S. Imperial weight - for professional yields (about 22-25 loaves) - Metric weight - for large professional yields - Home - Imperial volume (cups, teaspoons) w/some weights - 2-3 loaves - Bakers Percentages Home artisan bakers can easily scale their ingredients by looking at the professional metric weights and moving the decimal point for home yields. The only math necessary is converting fresh yeast to either active or instant yeasts. OR, if one wishes to customize ingredients, they can combine the baker's percentages as appropriate. The typeface and layout are such that they are user friendly. Mountains of information is there at one's ready without flipping all over and digging for salient information.

In addition to being a world class and decorated baker, Jeffrey Hamelman is a superb and entertaining teacher. I have had the good fortune to take multiple classes with him, and the techniques in Bread are explained exactly as he explains them in class--often accompanied by historical or personal anecdotes and enlivened by his dry wit. Most professional bakers have a copy of Bread, so this review is aimed at the home baker. If you're serious about your bread, you should own this book, end of story. Many of his recipes, like the Vermont Sourdough, are world renowned and it's wonderful to learn how to make them from the master. Though there are 130 recipes, every one of them seems unique and made by hand and you will want to bake them all and in time you will. With most cookbooks, you have the choice of reading whatever techniques and background the author provides as introduction, or diving right in and starting to make the recipes. If you're experienced with preferments, dividing and shaping, applying steam and other building blocks of the baker's repertoire, maybe you can just dive right into Bread. But that would be a shame because his explanations at the beginning of the book, of these and many other topics, are so clear and thorough that even the master baker has plenty to learn. I own the first edition of the book and was eager to get my hands on this new edition to see what's changed. Much of it is the same, yet the 30 new recipes are in my opinion worth the price of the new book on their own. Hamelman's perspective on flours has evolved in the 8 years since the first edition and the new recipes reflect it. There's more emphasis on added seeds and other enhancements. Interestingly, he's reworked several of the original recipes to replace high-gluten flour with lower-protein flour out of a confidence that America's bakers are ready to work with looser doughs. If you've already got a good starter (or are ready to make one from scratch), there's no better place to begin as your first loaf than the Vermont Sourdough. Otherwise, try one of the new yeasted recipes for either Unkneaded Six-Fold French Bread or "Slow Rise" Baguettes. We made both of these in class, and I predict your results will be not only delicious and satisfying, but the essence of all that is good about bread.

As an experienced home baker, this is the only book I've chosen to buy. I absolutely wouldn't say it's the be-all-and-end-all of baking; it's no "bread bible". But for the types of European breads I happen to like, it's the perfect book. There are no gimmicks here. Hamelman doesn't have some new method with each book (like Reinhart), he doesn't hold your hand (like Barenbaum). Just good core formulas and practical baking techniques. The critics are all correct when they note: the mixing times are for professional bakers and you have to double them for home; the moisture content can be off at home; the flour protein is not specified; you have to scale down for home use with a calculator; general hints are hidden in obscure places rather than highlighted for general use. He also leaves out many hand-holding steps he assumes you know. In other words, you pretty much have to make each of his recipes your own. That alone is why I can't recommend this book to the average home baker, especially a beginner. (Berenbaum's Bread Bible much better for beginner's.) But for the experienced home baker who already knows their way around dough feel, knows how to adjust hydration. salt, and yeast and sourdough fermentation times, this book is rock solid. Many classic formulas here, and once you get his thinking you can extrapolate many more. Most of the people I know who love this book end up adapting the recipes to their own tastes. In other words, Hamelman gives you an excellent starting point for many classic European breads. That is why I bought it. I have tons of recipes on my harddrive, but for a paper volume this was it. It's important to note Hamelman's training and tastes lean heavily toward German breads. You wouldn't guess that from the title or that he works for King Arthur. So you won't get "irish soda bread" or "anaconda bread" or many American classics. Heck, he barely has a classic white sandwich loaf here! Instead you'll find Sunflower seed bread, flax rye, vollkornbrot, pumpernickel, scalded rye. He also favors multigrain whites, with six different recipes for that in different forms. Those happen to be my favorite types of bread; but I wouldn't call that typical. Last criticism: not well bound. I already have pages falling out after a couple uses. No excuse! In short: Good book for core formulas for European (especially German) breads. No handholding for beginners, and no complex discussion of dough handling for experts. For those purposes I'd recommend a couple other books to augment this excellent resource.

We've had an artisan bakery for a few years in our small town. In the beginning it was excellent and we got spoiled; couldn't eat any other bread. Then new owner came and quality of the bread came down: different texture, huge holes. I only baked simple 3 hour breads before (mix ingredients, let rise, bake) so i was scared of trying to make this kinds of bread. But finally I'd had enough of that bakery's holes and dirty hands and decided to give it a try. I read first couple of chapters of this book one evening (mixing, proofing, the basics). The recipes given are for professional bakers but also scaled to 3 loafs for a home baker. I started by scaling those recipes to one loaf but after a couple of times decided that i felt more confident and if i was going to put in the time i would bake two loafs (now i scale all those recipes to 2 loafs: very easy to do). Plus that's all my baking stone can handle. Yes, it requires some experience to get the feel for hydration, proofing, steam, baking. I figured that the dough needs to be only slightly sticky after the first mix, i use mixing times recommended in the book for a home mixer (3 min on fist speed and 4-5 on second), i skip ice cubes for pre-steaming and only use 3/4 cup of boiling water for main steaming otherwise my crust is too hard, i start at 450 F and lower oven temperature to 425 F soon after i put the loafs in, also bake for few min less than the book suggests otherwise my bread comes out too dark. After 3 tries of not perfect but perfectly edible bread i bought 2 bannetons. On the 4th try i am proud to say, i baked two loafs that are absolutely as good as our bakery used to sell years ago. It doesn't mean that every loaf from now on will be great but i am figuring it out and enjoying the process. And i have yet to bake bread that my family refused to eat. I haven't tried sourdough yet either. That will be my next project. Artisan bread is sold for $6/loaf. It costs me less than a dollar with all organic ingredients and the satisfaction i get from the final product is priceless! :)))

for a few drawbacks, which most experienced bread bakers have probably identified. A baseline difficulty with Hamelman's recipes is the fact that they have been developed for and are geared towards commercial use and productivity. This is not evil; but one has to realize that many, many facets of Hamelman's recipes are geared towards trying to produce high quality bread in the least amount of time. His sourdough recipes probably exhibit this most critically. Pre-ferment and subsequent dough rising times have been carefully honed to reduce the time needed to produce good artisan breads. However, the times for these stages of bread development are not necessarily the best -- longer periods of poolish and levain development at significantly cooler temperatures and longer final dough rising times at cooler temperatures will undeniably produce even better bread. Do Hamelman's recipes if reproduced faithfully produce good bread? Absolutely yes. Can the recipes be modified to produce even better bread? Absolutely yes. I know this to be unqualifiedly true because I have baked many hundreds of loaves of various Hamelman recipes (and some of my own variations on his themes) that clearly are superior if the production times for the breads are increased with concomitant decreases in temperature. This is, again, especially true for Hamelman's sourdough breads and, more specifically, for his various rye breads. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the many friends with whom I have shared my loaves have strongly preferred the breads that have had lengthened development times at cooler temperatures over loaves produced strictly in line with Hamelman's time/temperature specifications. The other major problem with Hamelman's recipes is the fact that they have been scaled down dramatically for the home baker while still also indexed to the smaller commercial baker. Breads do not scale perfectly from pretty large batches to pretty small batches. This problem shows up most frequently in quite a few of Hamelman's recipes that, for the home baker, simply have too much liquid. This extra moisture is probably acceptable, and even desirable, when large batches are produced by a commercial baker using Hamelman's preferred use of a spiral mixer. But at home no one can produce the equivalent gluten development and liquid incorporation specified in many of Hamelman's recipes especially by hand-kneading the final dough. The result is loaves that will not rise as nicely as those in Hamelman's recipes and will tend to be flatter and spread out more. But let me be clear: except perhaps for some of the recipes in Maggie Glezer's bread book, there is no bread book out there save for a couple at very high prices clearly produced for professional chefs that can match the detail, the wisdom, and the guidance of Hamelman's two editions of his bread book. If many of you over the years (for me, over decades!) were frustrated with the incredible ignorance purveyed by many authors who claimed to know how to make bread (James Beard? Bernard Clayton? et al....), finding Hamelman's book on bread was a godsend and a revelation. So my critical review above is just an addendum of my own experience and inferences grafted onto a masterpiece of "Yeast Cookery" (Elizabeth David).

While I can't say that my bread baking skills are nearly that at which this book is aimed at, I do appreciate the skill and care that Hamelman clearly put into his instructions. "Bread" is not aimed at the home baker--its recipes require (trust me--I've failed enough!) quite some time and practice to get going, although in addition to presenting recipes aimed at the bakery level, it also provides recipes at the home-baker scale. That said, for the home baker, this provides ample opportunity to practice, hone and read about bread. This is not just for those who want the occasional loaf--it's for those who bake bread as a hobby, who suss out the local bakeries wherever they're traveling, those who lose sleep to stick to their proofing schedule. Having owned the first edition, this edition is significantly improved--all the old recipes have been there, although a lot of the errors have been corrected. In addition, there are a handful of new recipes (the brioche feuillete, I can attest, works beautifully) that you may or may not care about. Finally, there's updated information, pictures and illustrations. None of these may matter to you, but some of the recipes were nice to have. I should note that there are still *some* annoying inconsistencies/errors, but it's nothing that you can't figure out by cross referencing on the internet. Given all the information, the vast range of recipes, the drawings, this is a must have for the kitchen, if not to bake from, then to use as a general reference for baking!

Very in-depth book. I have made bread for years and recently the quality has dropped. As I started reading this book, I realized how little I really knew and while it is easy to make bread, it is hard to make GREAT bread. This book has transformed my bread making. I now making some of the best bread ever. Yes the recipes are very detailed and precise. And yes there are still some mystery points in it all. But if you want to learn how to make great bread, get this book. Read it and re-read the key sections to get the most and a better understanding. Bread is a very complex product. You may have to make the same recipe 10 times to get it great, but you will get close. Each time you make it it will be different. And what you will be learning with the effort and this book is how to get a truly good bread to eat. The book details are phenomenal. Lots of info and techniques. Lots of details on the chemistry of the bread making. The recipes are precise and need to be followed. Do so and you will be rewarded with truly wonderful bread. The book is an outstanding guide. PS: if your standards are not low and you want to make the average American white a little better than Walmart, as one critical reviewer said, don't bother trying to make bread.

Jeffrey Hamelman is one of the few US Master Bakers, and as the head baker of King Arthur, he has graced us with the dearth of his knowledge in this book. Having pored through it over hours and hours, I've come to the conclusion that it would be great to be Chef Hamelman's student as he is able to conflate food science with bread production and the more artistic aspects of creating bread in a way that isn't overly academic. The book is really aimed at commercial bakers and avid home bakers so by no means it is something I'd recommend to someone just starting out. But I will say that even those with just a little experience will benefit from the knowledge and experience that is shared in the pages of this book. What I found particularly beneficial is the detail he provides in the instruction portion of his recipes. As opposed to just throwing out a bunch of formulas, the chef takes time to explain the nuances in handling and processing the dough in his recipes. This gives the baker a much deeper sense of what is involved in the production of a particular type of loaf than if they were just presented as formulas and simple "do this" and "do that" instructions. Personally, I feel that having studied this book thoroughly I am a much better baker as a result!

This is a great book for those who have some knowledge of baking breads.

Me ha gustado mucho el libro, porque va directo al grano y sin embargo no se deja ningún detalle importante sin comentar. Aunque está orientado al panadero profesional, el aficionado puede extraer muchos consejos valiosos. Creo que es obligatorio leer este libro para cualquier persona que le guste hacer pan.

はい、いい本です。 作者をご覧になれば☆５つも納得でしょう！ ・・・・・しかし、これって 日本語になっていて しかも根性で読み倒した私のパンの本のバイブルの一つでした。 英語堪能な方にお勧めですが 日本語で出ていますのでそちらをお勧め致します。

Receitas incríveis, bem explicadas e todas com as quantidades para fazer em casa, bem como, as quantidades para produção em larga escala. Para quem quer elevar o nível das suas produções caseiras ou partir para a panificação profissional. Recomendo!

Non è un libro da sfogliare distrattamente e con cui deliziarsi passando da una fotografia all'altra. E' un vero manuale approfondito sulla panificazione, per cui bisogna concentrarsi nella lettura (in inglese) e fare a meno del supporto delle immagini (certo, qualcuna in più non avrebbe fatto male!) Ma per chi si avvicina alla panificazione con serietà e spirito di approfondimento è certamente consigliabile, perchè spiega nel dettaglio il perchè di certe tecniche di impasto, formatura, gli ingredienti, il lievito e tutto il processo dalla a alla z. Segue una ricca sezione dedicata alle ricette (con percentuali e schede molto pratiche delle quantità richieste, nonchè il procedimento da seguire), anch'essa priva di foto ma ricca di varianti di pane; infine, una sezione dedicata agli intrecci fantasiosi per le brioche e pagnotte particolari. Un libro fatto bene, pieno di sostanza.