August 9, 2012 - 7:05pm
Books
Hi
Does anyone have this book? I am a bit of a novice in breadbaking and was reviewing a sample of this book. I wonder if it uses mainly sourdough starter, as I prefer to use commercial yeast. Also, I do not have a bread machine -why would you- it would take all the fun out of bread baking to my mind, so handmade breads using commercial yeast and wholegrains is what I am looking for. I already have BBA. Can anyone advise me on the suitability of this book? Too many more books and I will have to move out of home. Not enough room for both me and books!
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Hi lamberta72. Can you be more specific and state the title of the book you're interested in?
Sorry, thought I'd put that info in my post I'm not blonde by the way! The books is Laurel's Kitchen bread book
You'll be fine with this book as regards not using sourdough. Relatively little space is given to desem, which is an esoteric method of producing wheat sourdough bread, and the rye sourdough recipes all use commercial yeast for their rising. Since I bake exclusively with wild yeast, I found the book very disappointing because a great deal had been made of the desem bread in the particular reviews I had read. I got better information for my purposes from Tartine Bread, but you should find plenty to try in Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book.
It's a great book, especially for whole grain breads. Sourdough is covered two ways -- as desem and as started from a grain of dry yeast. However, most of the recipes use dry baker's yeast. There is a bread machine chapter only in the second edition. In fact, her book is notorious for extensive hand kneading.
Thx for the input. Will now go ahead and purchase. I tend to eat mostly grain type breads so this sounds interesting.