Customer Reviews

The Best Bread Ever: Great Homemade Bread Using your Food Processor

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Three reasons to get this book:

- Technique

- Information

- Recipes

TECHNIQUE Technique is what got me: I've been baking breads at home for years. It's fun, the results are pleasing and well-received by friends and guests. But making bread at home has always been time consuming for me because of the lack of a professional mixer. This point is worth discussing here: If you want to knead bread without working hard and without making a mess, you need a professional mixer. Some home mixers or even hand mixers come with dough hooks, but don't be deceived: Very few home mixers are powerful enough to knead bread dough, and those that are are very expensive. There is no ordinary garden veriety cheap mixer that can knead bread dough. Period. Trust me on this one, and you won't burn your mixer's motor and burn your money as well. So you either knead dough by hand, which is time consuming and hard work, or you get this [rather inexpensive] book and learn the technique of using your ordinary food processor to do the job. Food processors work differently from mixers, and even a cheap food processor is powerful enough to knead bread dough using the technique described in the book. I should know -- I bought my food processor over 8 years ago for about US$40 in a supermaket... It's old and it's so weak that a fresh carrot could make it stick and halt. But I've been making batches and batches of great bread dough with it and so far it's been great.

If you are careful with the water and learn to add it gradually, you can actually eliminate measurements: You keep adding water gradually until the ball of dough is formed. If you go over a bit, just add a spoon of flour to try out the batch. It's quick, it's painless, and you can have perfect bread dough in under 1 minute (!). I think that no professional home or restaurant-class mixer can do that.

Once you get the hang of using a food processor to knead dough perfectly in under a minute, you will be more willing to experiment with bread making at home. It just won't be that big of a chore anymore.

INFORMATION The Best Bread Ever is not just a bunch of recipes for making bread. It will teach you all you need to know about the process of bread making: What fours to use, how much salt, what temperature is best, how to proof your bread, etc. There is no guesswork, there is no "feel" that takes forever to develop. Just read the introductory chapter and you'll know everything you need.

RECIPES The Best Bread Ever is filled with recipes. Most are great. I found some of the Middle Eastern recipes a bit off, but that's a minor point. From baguettes to Brioche to Pizza, the book is filled with great recipes and great ideas you can follow and/or improvise on.

But the bulk of my enthusiasm is reserved for the dough making technique. It's simply ingenious. I cannot over-emphasise the difference it will make in your bread making experience: Take the hardest, nastiest, messiest part of making bread and tame it completely, into a trivial process that takes just under a minute, and you will be free to enjoy the more creative aspects of making bread.

Anyone who is still mixing and kneading bread the traditional way is obviously doing it for some other reason than the quality of the bread. This book makes breadmaking so easy that a novice can turn out perfect baguettes and European breads by following the steps in each recipe. Even after 20+ years of baking, this is truly the best bread I've ever made. The explanations are precise, easy to follow, and have been adapted to different kinds of food processors. I bought the book for the recipes, but the first fifty pages of text were fascinating and essential to learning this new and exciting method of the ancient craft of breadmaking. You definitely want this book in your cooking library.

If you've never baked a loaf of bread or if you are an avid baker, this is the book for you. Charlie Van Over's "The Best Bread Book Ever" will teach you a bread baking technique that will add pleasure and taste to all your efforts. The use of a food processor as a kneading tool is not new, but his specific method is. Based on long years of experience, Van Over has developed such a precise process, you can only succeed. You will get bread that is more tasty, dough that is friendly to work with, and raves from your eating audience. I have tried numbers of baguette recipes, including the one I learned at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and his outstrips them all. The pizza dough is perfect (better than just best!); because he provides instructions from start to finish, you can serve up a pizza that will make you pause before ever ordering out again. The book includes a wide range of recipes, including a lovely feta and herb focaccia, a rich, delicious brioche with variations, and several sourdough breads. (Unlike some intimidating starter recipes, his is both simple and effective.) Happily, your own favorites are adaptable to his technique. Importantly, his writing style gives you the eerie and pleasant feeling that he is right by your side as you measure the ingredients, pulse the food processor, shape the dough, and slide it onto the baking stone. Bake and eat...you'll have a great time with Charlie!

Anyone who has traveled or lived in Europe for any length of time despairs upon returning to the States with its paucity of true high-quality food which Europeans take for granted. High on the list of longed-for foodstuffs is great bread. Even the so-called "french" bakeries have learned that they can define down their efforts (and increase their profits) for the American palate and still command upwards of $3.00 for a bland baguette or flavorless focaccia. Thanks to Charlie Van Over, at least for high-quality, low-cost bread, we need despair no longer! His method absolutely takes the guesswork out of breadmaking and you will not believe the beautiful, utterly delicious breads which you will produce with so little effort! The aroma that will fill your house as this incredible bread bakes is worth the price of the book alone. I recommend getting a starter going immediately as this is the key ingredient in a truly flavorful french-style baguette. The starter also can be used to improve the flavor of nearly any bread you bake. And as other bakers have recommended, let time be your ally. I make the dough in the evening (takes about 10 minutes from start to finish), do the first rise, then put it in the refrigerator for up to three days, baking at my convenience. Time does equal taste, as Mr. Van Over says, but it is "free time" in which the Method works, not you!

I would not have purchased this book, based upon the method described. I didn't believe it would work. However, after reading the customer reviews, I took a chance. I am glad I did, although the initial scepticism was borne out. The techniques described will produce acceptable to good baguettes. However, once you move on to loaves, you will be in trouble. The recipes are fine, but for really good results I found, through trial and error, that nothing compares to mixing the ingredients in the food processor just long enough for them to be combined, then (preferably after covering and waiting for 5-10 mins), putting the dough into a standing mixer with the dough hook for 3.5 to 4.0 minutes. The resulting dough is far superior to anything else I have tried and there is no comparison to the dough produced using just the food processor. (Shirley Corriher "Cookwise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking" also gave up on food processors as the sole mixer and I agree).

The only other suggestion is that if your kitchen is 20C (68F) or less, you will need to add to the proving time.

Don't be put off by these remarks. The recipes are very good, with the above qualifications.

Since last December when we started using Charles van Over'sThe Best Bread Ever, my family has not bought any bread---we just bakeit. Mr. van Over's techniques achieve the dual imperatives of producing addictively delicious breads that can be made as a matter of routine in our busy schedules. In this age where quality frequently is subordinated to our need for efficiency, Mr. van Over has given us what I had assumed was impossible---the best bread for the least effort. And make no mistake, this is not bread machine quality bread; this is top level artisan quality bread with flavors and textures that cause your palate to crave a product from the book with each meal. And, with a little planning and use of your freezer, you can satisfy that craving. Indeed, as strange as it may sound, some of these breads actually seem to improve with a little freezer time! Our favorite breads so far are: the baguettes (we go through 6-7 per week), the Classic Pullman Loaf (we use it for kid school lunch bread everyday, presliced and frozen as Mr. van Over suggests), the Bagels (wow! the school teachers have demanded the recipe), the Multigrain Sandwich Loaf (I modified the recipe by adding more whole wheat and love it as toast for breakfast), Seeded Deli Rye Bread (fabulous with Virginia ham and swiss cheese), the Peasant Wheat Loaf and the Pizzas (for maximum enjoyment, be sure to follow Mr. van Over's directions and retard the dough for at least 4 hours---longer is better). Buy this book and work bread making into your routine---its good for your soul and your taste buds will be grateful.

For 2 long years, I've been to bread making classes, read multiple reviews, articles (Julia Childs [Parade Magazine-1970's edition saved in the back of a cookbook]; a recent edition of Cook's Illustrated [very helpful]; etc.), and cookbooks, and still did not have what I considered an adequate, much less perfect, loaf of French Bread. A friend's mother heard of my dilemma and suggested Charles Van Over's book. It worked PERFECTLY the 1st and subsequent times. Just follow his recommendations precisely as I did (I'm a scientist and wanted to get all the variables exact), and you too will impress your family, your neighbors, and, most importantly, yourself! Moreover, you will save 10-20 minutes of kneading and dough manipulations that can result in considerable variability from loaf to loaf. With this book in hand, I now have plans to make bread about every other weekend and freeze perfect loaves and never 'buy' bread again. I have made over 100 less-than-adequate French bread baguettes that have been eaten without enthusiasm (or with guarded compliments by neighbors and friends to whom I've passed on these loaves that I though were OK) or have ended up in the garbage can in frustration. With Charles Van Over's techniques, neighbors who have received recent loaves complain that they only got a little piece because the others in their family ate it (a whole loaf devoured in less than 30 minutes by a father and daughter last Sunday afternoon) before they got home. It is truly THAT GOOD! As they said in the commercial in the 60's - "Try it... You'll like (read love) it! Good Cooking! and enjoy the fruits of Charlie's labors.

The pizza recipe alone is worth the price of this book. My husband scoffed at the idea of making pizza at home. After all you can order pizza commercially and get something quite tasty in less than a half hour at a very reasonable price. Why make pizza at home? Well I used Van Over's methods and I made a pizza that was worthy of the cover of Gourmet magazine. The crust was AMAZING, it has a perfect balance between tender yeastiness and chewiness. Truly a show-off dish for family or friends. I don't think that we will buy anymore commercial pizza. For your practical homemaker types (if there are any left) the cost is far lower than commercial pizza maybe 20% to 25%. It is possible to make a very tasty vegetarian pizza that has a reasonable amount of calories and fat. Making a more healthful homemade pizza and saving money on commercial pizzas really makes this book worth its price. In response to a cynical reviewer, I have no connection with the author or the publisher.

Throughout history, the "conventional wisdom" has almost always been wrong. Charlie Van Over's book certainly proves it to be wrong where bread baking is concerned. It's simple physics, but no one ever thought of it before. Mixing bread dough with the metal blades of a food processor in an enclosed space for a mere 45 seconds keeps the oxygen out of the dough, resulting in bread that looks better, tastes better and keeps longer. Try it. You'll be amazed at the results.

Never thought I'd be able to make perfect baguettes, ryes, boules, and pizza, but this easy to follow book has turned me into a mini-master. The food processor mixing method recommended here works like a charm, and makes the process very fast and simple. It's also very flexible, time-wise, since you can retard the dough in the fridge for up to a day, and finish the baking when it's convenient. This really is the best bread, ever!