have a shelf full of bread books, & only this one lives in the kitchen. My copy is in 4 pieces. For bakers of all levels. (Susan)

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Product Description

A comprehensive guide to creating-at home-the country-style breads that have consistently captured the imagination and the taste buds of the world.

In a richly told tale, Leader chronicles his crossings of America and Europe to locate the most vital ingredients at the source, to learn from the methods of the world's great bakers, and to perfect their traditional techniques. His recipes are ones that have been used for centuries: large sourdough ryes, rich and dark raisin pumpernickel loaves, real French pain au levain, big round wheats with walnuts, crusty baguettes, high and airy breads, and more. Made from organic, stone-ground grains, these breads are slow-leavened, hand-shaped, and baked to perfection on heated baking tiles. As you read through the recipes, you can almost smell the ancient aroma of baking bread. And as you begin to bake, you will learn the importance of the primary ingredient in great bread: your own observations.

These are some, of the breads and techniques you will master:

In the chapter "Becoming Bread," you will learn to identify and shop for the highest quality flour available. And you will seek it out because you'll taste the difference.

Making a poolish will become second nature to you as you master the Learning Recipe: Classic Country-Style Hearth Loaf and its delicious variations.

Whatever your schedule, there is a bread for you. In the chapter "Straight-Dough Breads: Traditional Breads for a Modern Life-Style," you are shown how to start and finish a recipe in five hours, or morning-to-night, or night-to-night.

You will bake sourdough bread in its many forms. By gently introducing the concept of sourdough-how it is made, how it is maintained, and how to get the best flavor from it leader demystifies it and makes it accessible to you.

Discover the wonders of rye bread: From the dense and chewy Finnish Sour Rye to the fragrant Danish Light Rye, everyone's tastes are served.

The mystery of pain au levain, French for "bread from a sourdough or wild yeast," unfolds into an understandable, user friendly process. From My Personal Favorite Pain au Levain, a typical large Parisian loaf, toPain au Levain with Pecans d

Dried Cherries, the "Family of TraditionalPain au Levain"includes some of the best loaves baked around the world,

A perfect baguette is a beautiful thing. From shaping to scoring, you will learn how to make the authentic French baguette at home.

The purpose of an organic certifier-find out how and why one farmer becomes dedicated to his role as land steward.

Brioche, Chocolate-Apricot Kugelhopf, Panettone, and Semolina Sesame Rolls are a few recipes you will find in 'A Family of Breads Inspired by Traditional French and Italian Breads."

Finally, when a quick bread is all you have time to bake, you will find recipes for such delights as Vanilla Bean Butter Loaf; Dried Pear, Port, and Poppy Seed Loaf; and Provolone Sage Corn Loaf.

Bread Alone is the bread book that cooks and bakers have been waiting for. From the wheat fields of the Midwest to the hot and steamy boulangeries of Paris, you will travel the long and delicious road to flawless bread baking. You will emerge a better baker and with a deeper understanding of what it takes to make perfect loaves. Bakers entertain you with stories of their love of baking (even in the most adverse situations). Bread Alone is the bible of bread books and a must have for bread lovers everywhere.

24 pages of full color, featuring bakers at work, the breads in the book, all the equipment you'll need, and the grains used

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #263244 in Books
• Published on: 1993-11-19
• Released on: 1993-11-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Library Journal
Here is a wonderful collection of delicious recipes and bread lore. Leader, a former New York City restaurant chef, runs Bread Alone, a popular Woodstock, New York, bakery well known for its breads baked in wood-fired brick ovens. Blahnik is a food writer and editor. Leader is an example of the dedicated artisans described in Joe Ortiz's excellent The Village Baker ( LJ 12/92); as he became increasingly fascinated with bread-making, he traveled to Europe and throughout the United States to uncover the secrets of the craft. The results are his traditional and "tradition-based" breads such as Country-Style Loaf with Herbs and Onion, Sourdough Rye, and Pain au Levain with Olives and Rosemary. The recipes are extremely detailed, and the accounts of Leader's adventures in the world of bread bakers are both readable and fun. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Daniel Leader is the owner and baker of the Bread Alone Bakery in New York's Catskill Mountains. Dan's food career began when, nine months short of his undergraduate philosophy degree from the University of Wisconsin, he realized his need to work with his hands as well as his mind. He enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, graduated at the top of his class, and, worked as a chef for some of New York City's hottest restaurants, La Grenouille and the Water Club. Then, after eight years of cooking food "too fancy to eat," he became obsessed with the idea of creating something wholesome, timeless, and beautiful. Great bread and Bread Alone were born. Dan lives in Boiceville, New York, with his wife, Sharon, and four children, Liv, Nels, Octavia, and Noah.

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Customer Reviews

Bread Alone: Bold Fresh Loaves from Your Own Hands
I have tried for years to replicate the Artisan breads of Baltimore and Washington bakeries in my kitchen oven. Although the breads were fine tasting, they never had the tough, chewy, delicious crust of those breads I favored and bought as often as I could. Daniel Leader, author of Bread Alone, presents the "secret" of Artisan bread making. The first recipe I tried resulted in the crust and crumb I have tried for years to produce! Not only does Mr. Leader show the home baker, through step by step process of making Artisan bread, he laces his recipes with personal stories of his trips to France, learning from the French Boulangers and their sometimes personal stories. Not only is the book well worth it's recipes, it makes for enjoyable reading. This book goes beyond the recipes found in Baking with Julia, a very good book. Bread Alone shows step by step how to build the chef, the poolish and the slow fermentation of the dough to produce that wonderful tastey crust, so elusive in other books.

Agreed: need a new editor
The book has many good features, and I've made some great breads with it. But it is very annoying to run accross silly errors that a half way decent editor should have caught. The worst mistakes are in proportions, which are obviously very frustrating (particularly if you've spent money on the expensive flours Leader incorrectly suggests are crucial). Other reviewers are correct that the number of pages could have been drastically reduced. Frustrating is the fact that while there is an enormous amount of repetition, some important aspects are given only cursory treatment: e.g., how to form the loaves, how to make breads from straight dough. Also annoying is his suggestion that you reuse plastic wrap. The fixation on temperature is too much as well. When my house is warm, it's warm, and when it's cool it's cool, and the bread does fine in both, although it moves faster the warmer it is. My book fell apart very quickly, too.

You too can bake great bread
Okay, I agree with some of the negatives pointed out by the other reviewers. The excruciating detail can become repetitive, we do not all have access to the exact ingredients, nor the patience to deal with the precise temperature requirements. That said, this book allowed me, an amateur, to make some amazing bread. I follow the instructions fairly closely, but use common sense where appropriate. I have not yet used a thermometer, and yet have produced some great regular and sourdough loaves, bagels, pitas, etc. What this book does is tell you the steps you need to follow, techniques to use (particularly kneading), how the dough should look and feel at different stages. This book provides everything you need to learn the basics of bread-making (except patience, of course).