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

The average rating for Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day: Fast and Easy Recipes for World-Class Breads based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-06-08 00:00:00 Charles Brandon Given that bread has been around for so long I should not be surprised that I did not think it possible that fundamental revolutions in the making of it were still possible. But they are! The famous "New York Times No-Knead Bread" showed me that making a lovely and tasty loaf of country style bread could be so easy it was hard to even take credit for it. I made that bread for a while, but the easiness of it, and the fact that it did not fill the house with bread smell during baking, left me wanting more. So I searched and very quickly found my new bread guru - Peter Reinhart. His innovations seem like variations of the no-knead method, which perhaps they are, but they are more involved, require more effort, and so are something you can actually be proud of accomplishing. My apprenticeship making no-knead bread no doubt aided my seamless transition to Reinhart's formulas (he calls them "formulas" rather than "recipes"), so from the very first attempt, a ciabatta, I felt like a master baker. Since then I've moved on to a white sandwich loaf and focaccia, both of which were also excellent. What are his innovations? Instead of kneading (or no-kneading) he employs a stretch and fold method, which takes seconds, and which according to his research creates just as many strands of gluten as 20 minutes of laborious kneading. His other innovation is allowing the bread to rise overnight in the refrigerator, rather than quickly in a warm spot. This longer rise allows many more flavors to develop in the flour mixture. There are other, smaller, innovations, such as a higher water content in the mix, but they were already familiar to from my experience with making no-knead bread. I don't know that Mr. Reinhart can take sole and complete credit for these recent innovations in an ancient practice, but the clarity of his books and his role as a travelling bread man have made him the face of the current home bread making renaissance. Get the book, get a baking stone, and get baking!

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-06 00:00:00 Jerome Stewart 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.