Product Description

The new baking masterwork from the author of The Cake Bible and The Pie and Pastry Bible.

The Bread Bible gives bread bakers 150 of the meticulous, foolproof recipes that are Rose Levy Beranbaum's trademark. Her knowledge of the chemistry of baking, the accessibility of her recipes, and the incomparable taste of her creations make this book invaluable for home cooks and professional bakers alike.

Recipes include bread made with yeast starters, quick breads, flatbreads, brioche, and much more. From ciabatta, semolina, rye, and sourdough breads to bagels, biscuits, crumpets, and pizza dough, The Bread Bible covers all the baking bases.

"Understanding" and "Pointers for Success" sections explain in simple, readable language the importance of various techniques and ingredients demonstrated in a recipe, providing a complete education in the art of baking, with thorough sections on types of flour, equipment, and other essentials. Easy-to-use ingredient tables provide both volume and weight, for surefire recipes that work perfectly every time. 225 line drawings and 32 pages of color illustrations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8828 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 640 pages

Amazon.com Review
Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible introduced readers to a newly illuminating baking-book approach--a precisely detailed yet accessible recipe format emphasizing baking science. The Bread Bible follows the same plan, offering 150 recipes, arranged by type, for a great variety of baked goods--from muffins, popovers, and English muffins to sandwich loaves, focaccia, rolls, hearth breads, rye bread, challah, and more, with a particularly vivid (and passionate) stop at sourdough loaves. Instruction is abetted by 32 pages of photos plus 300 step-by-step illustrations that depict, for example, bagel forming, in exact, imitable detail. In addition, an introductory section, "The Ten Essential Steps of Making Bread," includes a particularly lucid discussion on the way yeast works plus an invaluable comparison of kneading methods. Like the book's final look at ingredients, these "mini-texts" provide information uncommon to most home bread books, rendered in simple language that allays fears of putting one's hand in the dough.

All this is impressive indeed, and readers bitten by the bread-baking bug will welcome the ultra-thorough Beranbaum approach. The less committed may find her technical demands too painstaking (her baguette recipe requires two starters, for example; though simpler loaves are, of course, offered) or even impractical (ingredient quantities using grams are sometimes given in minute fractions, requiring a special scale). The frequent inclusion of alternate mixing methods and equipment options can also make the formulas unwieldy. On the other hand, features like Pointers for Success and Understanding often yield exciting discovery as well as rewarding results. In short, this Beranbaum bible answers virtually every bread-making question, as well as providing exemplary formulas. It's the real deal for those willing to bake along with Rose. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly
As in her seminal The Cake Bible, which won an IACP prize, Beranbaum doesn't just offer recipes here; she dissects them, explains how they work, then puts them back together again with a number of variations. The front matter to what Beranbaum terms her "bread biography" contains perhaps the best explanation anywhere of how yeast works and a description of the sponge method used for almost every yeast-risen bread. Each recipe also includes a "Rose ratio," which shows at a glance the percentage of water, yeast, flour and fat in each bread. The author's discussion of the pros and cons of various kneading methods (bread machine, by hand, etc.) is invaluable. After all this information, bakers will be eager to get to the recipes, which are equally rewarding. Beranbaum covers everything from a Chocolate Bread made with cocoa nibs to a Traditional Challah. Recipes are arranged by type of bread, with groups including sandwich loaves and dinner rolls and brioche breads. A chapter on artisanal hearth breads includes Heart of Wheat Bread, with wheat germ for extra crunch, and New Zealand Almond and Fig Bread with an apricot glaze. Every time Beranbaum seems about to go overboard with too much information, she steps back from the brink, as in the excellent introduction to sourdough, where she thoroughly explains how sourdough works, then provides a simple box with eight rules for making a starter. Beranbaum could have a second career as a scientist, but luckily for home bakers she seems intent on creating a library of seminal cookbooks instead.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
A quotation that I apparently utter with the repetitiveness of a mantra is Escoffier's declaration that 'The art of cookery is the constant expression of the present.' Trust Rose to understand this fully, as she uninterruptedly demonstrates with constant pitch-perfect responses to the craving for technical know-how of today's younger generations. . . .The years this oeuvre has taken, the author concludes, she now looks back on as a humbling as well as an elevating experience, 'opening the way for a lifetime of continued discovery,' a path that readers, taking her hand, can follow too, to the end of their bread enlightened days. (Michael Batterberry, founding editor of Food Arts and Food & Wine magazines )

A scholarly addition to the art of bread making. -- Seattle Times, 26 November 2003

An amazing amount of useful information with many great and trustworthy recipes....this book is heavenly, just as the title promises. -- Peter Reinhart, author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice

Covers crumpets to kugelhopf in this meticulously researched tome. -- Newsweek, 17 November 2003

Every book by Rose Levy Beranbaum is a highly anticipated event but this one is particularly close to my heart. The Bread Bible brings together an amazing amount of useful information with many many great and trustworthy recipes--you can always count on a recipe by Rose, and her attention to every detail. For a baker like me, this book is heavenly, just as the title promises. (Peter Reinhart, author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice )

Rose will not only walk you through a recipe, she will hold your hand all the way. She is the ultimate perfectionist and we readers are the beneficiaries. We can always count on her to create recipes that not only work flawlessly, but taste out of this world. Way to go, Rose! (Maggie Glezer, author of Artisan Baking Across America )

Rose, of course, is the reigning Goddess with regards to the definitive word on all things pertaining to pastries and cakes. But now she has decided to clear away all misunderstandings by giving us The Bread Bible. My question is, "When are we going to have a 'Rose Levy Beranbaum National Holiday'?"
(Charlie Trotter )

The world of bread baking has been a secret society for 5000 years. Not any more. This book explains bread in all its historical, gastronomic, chewy, crusty, glorious detail. Of course, it took Rose to do it. This is the bread book. (Bill Yosses, pastry chef, New York City )

This is the bread book. -- Bill Yosses, pastry chef, New York City

This is a book that has left no questions about how to make and bake bread. The Bread Bible belongs in every baker's kitchen. (Marion Cunningham, author of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook )

This is a book that has left no questions about how to make and bake bread....belongs in every baker's kitchen. -- Marion Cunningham, author of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

Customer Reviews

Rose has done it again... created a classic, that is
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!

CORRECTION FROM THE AUTHOR
Re the rye bread, on page 326, step 2, delete the words 'rye flour.' (the rye flour is used only in the sponge on page 325.) Also, on the chart for the flour mixture, the 2 1/4 cups of bread flour weigh 12.3 ounces.
Hope you are enjoying the recipes. If you haven't used the instant yeast before, you're going to love the ease and reliability of adding it directly to the flour!
Best bread baking,
Rose Levy Beranbaum

If "Beard on Bread" is the "Old Testament,"
Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible" is the "New Testament"!There are now many good bread books, but if I could have only one bread book, this would be the one.Ms. Beranbaum includes non-yeasted breads in this book.Oh, this book is so good. I have been baking bread for over 15 years, and I knew more than a little, but this book has opened a wider world. She has diminished some of my anxiety about sourdough bread, by talking about her sourdough anxiety, which she vanquished.Ms. Beranbaum encourages mechanical mixing, and does not consider it a "crime," like some other writers on bread. However, manual mixing is included. She has written lots of information on flours. Detailed, yet accessible.She encourages home bakers to think in more professional terms by giving weight measures (grams and ounces,) as well as volume measures (cups, spoons). She also gives proportion percentages.Ms Beranbaum's introductory comments are fascinating.The index is complete and easy to use.The photos and technical drawings are complete and well chosen.This book is definitely one of MY "desert island ten."