Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day: Fast and Easy Recipes for World-Class Breads Book

This is the only bread baking book that I can think of that both the complete beginner and the little experienced will use. If you are short on time and would like to know what is the EASIEST way to make REAL bread, then this is the book for you. You won't find any shortcuts or anything like that but it truly is incredibly easy to make ANYTHING from this book.

It doesn't go deep into technique but it teaches you just enough technique to make the recipes in this book, only. It's very thorough actually for such a small book.

It's also very usable, I have tried 4 of the recipes and they were all good. Used the formulas at the back to use specific amount of flour, and I can easily tell you that there are no errors whatsoever.

As a somewhat experienced baker (by now), I can tell you that this book does not provide the ULTIMATE result if you're used to very high quality bread, but nothing in the supermarket would even come close to its quality. As Reinhart said, "every day". It's the type of bread you'd like to eat on a daily basis.

Plus, I like the idea of making the dough at night, popping it in the fridge, and then making it at any time you want within 4 days.

If you have a stand mixer, this will definitely be the easiest bread book you'll ever use. If you don't, don't worry, it would still be easy, as Reinhart provides instructions for making dough by hand as well. This is actually one of the rare bread baking books that don't ask for a lot of equipment.

The five chapters are:
1- Baking Basics (must-read if you have never made bread in your life).
2- Sourdough and Wild Yeast Fundamentals (Not very detailed but detailed enough for the lay man)
3- French Breads and Sourdough Hearth Breads (Yay, you get to use the starter that you made!)
4- Enriched Breads (Breads that contain oil/eggs/sugar...etc)
5- Rich Breads (Breads that are high in fat, relatively, and used in making sweet stuff).

Would recommend it.