Reviews for The Bread Machine Cookbook VI: Hand-Shaped Breads from the Dough Cycle, Vol. 6

The average rating for The Bread Machine Cookbook VI: Hand-Shaped Breads from the Dough Cycle, Vol. 6 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-10-19 00:00:00 Michael Schoenherr This is the final, as far as I know, installment in German's Bread Machine cookbook series for Nitty Gritty Cookbooks. I bought it mainly because I'm going to be doing a review of the full series for National Sandwich Day. The theme of this installment is "the dough cycle". Once the machine has kneaded the dough and allowed it to rise, it is ready for you to shape according to tradition or to what suits your mood. Whether making rolls or a loaf, there are hundreds of variations of shapes. This book is a compilation of traditional breads, ethnic breads and some new variations on older themes. All recipes are made using the dough cycle of your bread machine. There are detailed instructions with drawings of how to make various kinds of rolls, such as flower/knot rolls, cloverleaf rolls, coil rolls, Parker House rolls, fan rolls, kaiser rolls, daisy wheels, and so on. I have not used any of those so far, although I intend to. Since my purchase of this book happened to coincide with finally buying a grill, my first recipe was Indian flatbread (naan) on the grill. The recipe calls for a 500 degree oven, which was a good test of the grill's capability, since one of the reasons I bought it was to grill pizza. Using the grill's pizza stone for making flatbread worked great. The recipe is a simple one, and calls for yogurt instead of milk. Unlike many of these recipes, the flatbread goes straight from the dough cycle to the oven with no second rise, making this a reasonably quick recipe as well. The hour and a half dough cycle is perfect for getting the grill up to temperature. My second recipe was a more traditional sweet roll: orange-craisin buns, that is, a cinnamon roll flavored with orange instead of cinnamon, and filled with almonds and dried cranberries. This one was amazing. The third recipe was another flatbread, because I wanted to make pizza. The Mediterranean cheese flatbread is made with grated mozzarella or feta cheese, and flavored with basil and pine nuts. I used half of the recipe for the pizza round and the other half to make three small flatbreads, and used the same mozzarella as I put on the pizza for the dough. This was a nice choice both for the pizza dough and for the bread to accompany the pizza. And both were great for grilling. I have a lot of recipes bookmarked. An olive-walnut rolled loaf, jalapeño and cilantro baguettes, orange-ginger-garlic-pepper baguettes, lemon crescents and normal croissants, mahlab rings, and Middle Eastern filled holiday buns, where the filling is dates and walnuts. The croissants require working over several stages, putting the dough in the fridge between each stage. Between this and Dominique Ansel's The Secret Recipes I will learn how to make good croissants. The Mahlab rings call for, unsurprisingly, mahlab, crushed black cherry seeds. This is only the second time I've seen that ingredient called for, the first time in the Anise bread from The Art of Syrian Cookery by Helen Corey. That was amazing, and so I expect good things from this recipe, too. The bread is flavored with mahlab and the rings are filled with lemon juice, sugar, and sesame seeds. As the culmination of a bread machine series, this is a great lesson in using the bread machine for the hard work, and doing the creative work by hand.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-10-11 00:00:00 Tony Smith This is an excellent book for experienced home bakers. The author takes the reader through all aspects of the baking life ' growing the wheat, milling the flour, mixing the dough, ovens, baking competitions, etc. ' as she visits various famous artisan bakers around the country. She also provides detailed recipes shared by those bakers. The book is heavily weighted to bread baking rather than pastry baking. For anyone who loves to bake rustic breads and pastries at home, this book is a lot of fun. Anyone who bakes traditional sourdough breads should be warned that most of the book's bread recipes involve breads that are baked with commercial yeast products.