Product Description

Co-founder of the legendary Brother Juniper’s Bakery in Sonoma, California, author of the landmark books Brother Juniper’s Bread Book and Crust & Crumb, and distinguished instructor at the world’s largest culinary school, Peter Reinhart has been a leader in America’s artisanal bread movement for over fifteen years. Never one to be content with yesterday’s baking triumph, however, Peter continues to refine his recipes and techniques in his never-ending quest for perfect bread. In THE BREAD BAKER’S APPRENTICE, Peter shares his latest bread breakthroughs, arising from his recent pilgrimage to study in several of France’s famed boulangeries and the always-enlightening time spent in the culinary academy kitchen with his students. First you’ll peer over Peter’s shoulder as he learns from Paris’s most esteemed bakers, people like the brothers Poilâne and Phillippe Gosselin, whose pain ancienne has revolutionized the art of baguette making. Peter then walks readers through the twelve steps of building great bread, his clear instructions accompanied by over 100 step-by-step photographs. Then it’s on to over 50 new master formulas for such classic breads as rustic, chewy ciabatta, hearty pain de campagna, old-school New York bagels, and the book’s Holy Grail—Peter’s version of the famed pain ancienne. En route, Peter distills hard science, advanced techniques, and food history down into a remarkably accessible and engaging resource that is as rich and multitextured as the loaves you’ll turn out. This is original food writing at it most captivating, teaching at its most inspired and inspiring—and the rewards are some of the best breads under the sun.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2507 in Books
• Published on: 2001-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Amazon.com
"A bread baker, like any true artisan or craftsman, must have the power to control outcomes," says Peter Reinhart, author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice. "Mastery comes with practice." As in many arts, you must know and understand the rules before you can break them. Reinhart encourages you to learn the science of bread making, but to never forget that vision and experimentation, not formulas, make transcendent loaves. The Bread Baker's Apprentice is broken into three sections. The first is an amusing tale of Reinhart's visit to France and his discovery of pain à l'ancienne, a cold-fermented baguette. The second section comprises a tutorial of bread-making basics and Reinhart's "Twelve Stages of Bread." And finally, the recipes: Ciabatta, Pane Siciliano, Potato Rosemary Bread, New York Deli Rye, Kaiser Rolls, and Brioche, to name a few. All recipes include bread profiles and ingredient percentages. Reimagined for modern bakers, these mouthwatering classic recipes are bound to inspire. --Dana Van Nest

From Library Journal
Author of the well-respected Brother Juniper's Bread Book and Crust & Crumb, baker-turned-culinary instructor Reinhart draws on his baking and teaching experience to provide an authoritative but unintimidating guide to baking professional-quality loaves of all sorts. He begins with an account of a recent tour of specialty bakeries in Paris, including Gosselin, where he learned to make the young baker's unique pain l'ancienne which, Reinhart says, would be better called pain moderne, as it uses a modern invention (the refrigerator) to produce a "cold-dough delayed-fermentation" baguette, the best he has ever tasted. He found this technique revolutionary, and he includes the recipe here, along with a wide variety of other artisan and classic breads, from Ciabatta to Poilene-Style Miche to Tuscan Bread. The recipes are preceded by a 50-page primer on the "twelve stages of bread," and there are dozens of photographs, including particularly helpful ones of shaping different loaves. Valuable for both the professional and the novice, this is highly recommended for all baking collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The staff of life, homemade bread satisfies many a craving. In The Bread Baker's Apprentice, Peter Reinhart, noted bakery operator and author, has written a thorough, well-organized, and helpful introduction to bread baking that nearly everyone can profit from. Classifying the types of breads and presenting ingredients in tables helps the baker understand relationships and commonalities among seemingly dissimilar breads. Reinhart covers only yeast breads except for a single recipe for a triumphal cornbread full of fresh corn and topped with bacon. If a cook can do the math, Reinhart's tables of bakers' "percentages" allow for adjusting the recipes to any model bread machine, and the truly expert may use the numbers to create wholly new breads. A bibliography, a directory of ingredient sources, and a comprehensive list of bread-baking Web sites make this book a fount of practical, valuable baking lore. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Entry level book for bread baking
The Bread Baker's Apprentice book is a good entry book for bread baking.

Most recipes are based on commercial yeast (as opposed to sourdough), making them more suitable for most readers. Those who are looking for sourdough based recipes should look elsewhere (for example Daniel Leader's Bread Alone).

My favorite recipe are bagels. Simple and great tasting. Bagels recipe alone is enough to buy this book. Retarded baguet taste great too. There are many recepies from around the world.

If you don't want to mess with sourdough, than I highly recomend this book.

Beautiful book, delicious bread...
I'm an idiot baker, but a little snooty about the bread I buy. So when I turned out the best baguette I've probably ever had, inside or outside of France, I knew this was a keeper. The book looks too pretty to be useful, but it rocks. Want the chemistry behind baking? Check. Want helpful photos demonstrating technique? Check. Want recipes that make complex and amazing bread? Yeah, baby.

Downside: we're looking at potential double digits weight gain here. Sigh.

Good but DISAPPOINTED w/ damage caused during transit
Although I have been a long-time satisfied customer, I now feel an obligation to warn you against purchasing this from Amazon. If you do, you will risk having an experience similar to mine and receiving a damaged book, or even receiving two damaged books.

Based upon two successive experiences, it appears that Amazon has either (1) discontinued its policy of using shrink-wrap to protect its books or (2) it continues to have such policy but does not adequately supervise its shipping department personnel so that books will not be unnecessarily damaged. In either event, its efforts to protect books during transit does not appear to be as reliable as before.

Initially, I decided to order Peter Reinhart's outstanding book from Amazon after seeing it at a local book store. I placed the order in the usual manner and was somewhat surprised to discover that inadequate packing material was used. Because the book was not protected with shrink wrap, it slid back and forth within the delivery box during transit which caused a signifigant rip in the upper right corner of the dust jacket, slight damage to the corner of the book, and damage to the entire front of the dust jacket when it was polished by the friction of rubbing against the interior of the cardboard box during transit.

Alright, I know what you're thinking. It's a minor item. Just contact customer service.

I did that. The first email response that I received was that Amazon did not have any control over the use of plastic wrap and that it was up to the book suppliers to do so.

Since the manner in which earlier books were consistently wrapped in shrink-wrap and the wrapping appeared to be similar regardless of the publisher, the initial answer that I received from customer service made no sense to me.

I pressed on. I contacted Amazon's customer service again and explained the situation. This time, I was told that Amazon would send a replacement and was told "please be assured that this will be packaged securely as you expect."

This sounded good. I wrapped the first book, stood in line at the post office, and mailed it back.

When the second book arrived, it, too, was packed loosely with no protective shrink wrap. As a result, the dust cover is somewhat polished, but not as bad as the first one. The book, however, does not have the same appearance as a new, undamaged one.

I sent another email to Amazon's customer service and waited for a reply. None came, or at least none has so far.

I'm going to keep the book, and I am not going to waste any more time at the post office. Peter Reinhart has some excellent ideas and I'm grateful that he shared them. The text within the book is well worthwhile. When I buy another book, however, I'm going to buy it at my local book store.