Books
The Handmade Loaf by Dan Lepard
A lovely book with some excellent recipes which encouraged me to try sour dough bread made with my own leaven. There is an active forum on his web site, where Dan and others can be very helpful at answering questions. There is always some good natured banter on the benefits, or otherwise, of commercial yeast, to knead or not etc. Just don’t ask if you should use sparkling mineral water for your loaves…
Some of my favourite recipes:
Milk Loaf (this is top of the list for my children);
Crusty Potato Bread. I don’t know why the addition of such a small amount of potato makes such a difference, but it does.
Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley
Also very passionate about slo-o-o-ow bread, whether it be sour dough or overnight sponges. I found the leaven starter process to be easier to follow than the Dan Lepard one, and it has more information as to how to store the different types of leavens. The overnight sponge Scottish morning rolls are wonderfully easy and tasty.
Crust by Richard Bertinet
I bought this very recently, after watching Richard at work in his cookery school, so haven’t had a chance to try any recipes yet. At first glance it looks very appealing and descriptive. I’m planning on using it to have a try at some French sticks. It comes with a DVD which may show his “working” technique. I’ll update when I watch it.
Update: moulding french sticks is on the DVD, if a little hard to find. The autolyse baguette recipe has the incorrect weights for the mini-baguettes and should read 150g instead of 200g, that’s been kindly confirmed by M. Bertinet. Interesting reading so far, and definitely worthy of a place on my bookshelf.
100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood
Paul Hollywood has the dubious privilege of providing Harrods with Britain’s most expensive loaf, which went on sale for £15 last Christmas. Almond and Roquefort, apparently: the recipe isn’t in the book, but I’m not inspired enough to try and reproduce it anyway.
I didn’t go to the trouble of crafting the “display” wheatsheaf at the front of the book. I wonder if anyone actually bothers with that one? Please let me know if you have!
Having said all that, the book has some down to earth recipes for yeasted bread. My favourites are pitta bread and ciabatta. I use a different method for ciabatta these days, so don’t reach for this book as often as others.
English Bread and Yeast Cookery by Elizabeth David
This was a Christmas present in 2007. I haven’t actually used a recipe from it yet. The one time I was looking for something, (can’t remember what, sorry!) I found a vague description of the history etc., but no detail as to how to cook it, so it put me off. A lot of people rate it, and her writing, so I will persevere at some time. At the moment I’m learning and getting more than enough inspiration from the first three books on my list. So much to try, so little time.