Nothing says home like the aroma of bread hot from the oven. Even in its simplest form, a humble product of flour, water, and yeast, the handmade loaf plays a starring role in any cook's repertoire, Bread, with more than 100 outstanding original recipes, is a celebration of this most satisfying of the basic culinary arts. From its old-fashioned Italian peasant rolls to sophisticated champignon brioche, from quick biscuits to elaborate coffee cakes, author Beth Hensperger's Bread has something to match every taste and fit every occasion. There are savory breads for elegant dinners, picnic breads for sunny days, whole-grain breads for the energetic morning, tea breads for the last afternoon. You'll also find recipes for flavored butters, cheese spreads, mustards, and jams. Beautiful full-color photographs and clear, comprehensive instructions are found throughout these pages, inspiring the old hand and smoothly launching the first-time bread baker.
Beth Hensperger, a New Jersey-born who now considers herself a California native, has been educating, writing, and demo-lecturing about the art of baking bread and cooking for thirty years. In the last few years, she has shifted focus from baking bread to countertop appliance-driven cookbooks that embrace the use of seasonal ingredients, merge convenience with cooking from scratch, and modernizing the home kitchen: the bread machine, the rice cooker, the microwave oven, and now a four-volume compilation specifically for use with the electric slow cooker, stressing care in preparation and personal creativity.
Hensperger's writing career began when she was chosen as the guest cooking instructor for the March 1985 issue of Bon Appétit. Now she is the author of over twenty cookbooks, including the best-selling Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook series, which includes Not Your Mother's Recipes for Entertaining, Not Your Mother's Family Favorites, Not Your Mother's Weeknight Suppers, and NYMSC Recipes for Two along with the blockbuster first volume, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. Also from The Harvard Common Press are The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook, The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook, and The Best Quick Breads. She is also the author of The Bread Bible, winner of the 2000 James Beard Book Award in Baking, and nominated twice for an IACP Cookbook Award.
Hensperger wrote a food column, "Baking with the Seasons," for the San Jose Mercury News (which was nominated for a James Beard Award in newspaper journalism) for over 12 years until the newspaper downsized.
She is a contributor to dozens of national and online cooking & lifestyle magazines, such as Food and Wine, Rachel Ray Magazine, Prevention, Veggie Life, Working Woman, Family Circle, and Cooking.com, as well as being a sought after radio interviewee speaking on cooking, baking, and entertaining. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Visit Beth's website at BethHensperger.com and her weekly blog at notyourmotherscookbooks.com.
