The Bread Bible [Hardcover]

Rose Levy Beranbaum (Author), Alan Witschonke (Illustrator), Michael Batterberry (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2003

The new baking masterwork from the author of The Cake Bible and The Pie and Pastry Bible.

The Bread Bible gives bread bakers 150 of the meticulous, foolproof recipes that are Rose Levy Beranbaum's trademark. Her knowledge of the chemistry of baking, the accessibility of her recipes, and the incomparable taste of her creations make this book invaluable for home cooks and professional bakers alike.

"Understanding" and "Pointers for Success" sections explain in simple, readable language the importance of various techniques and ingredients demonstrated in a recipe, providing a complete education in the art of baking, with thorough sections on types of flour, equipment, and other essentials. Easy-to-use ingredient tables provide both volume and weight, for surefire recipes that work perfectly every time.

Recipes include bread made with yeast starters, quick breads, flatbreads, brioche, and much more. From ciabatta, semolina, rye, and sourdough breads to bagels, biscuits, crumpets, and pizza dough, The Bread Bible covers all the baking bases. 225 line drawings and 32 pages of color illustrations

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible introduced readers to a newly illuminating baking-book approach--a precisely detailed yet accessible recipe format emphasizing baking science. The Bread Bible follows the same plan, offering 150 recipes, arranged by type, for a great variety of baked goods--from muffins, popovers, and English muffins to sandwich loaves, focaccia, rolls, hearth breads, rye bread, challah, and more, with a particularly vivid (and passionate) stop at sourdough loaves. Instruction is abetted by 32 pages of photos plus 300 step-by-step illustrations that depict, for example, bagel forming, in exact, imitable detail. In addition, an introductory section, "The Ten Essential Steps of Making Bread," includes a particularly lucid discussion on the way yeast works plus an invaluable comparison of kneading methods. Like the book's final look at ingredients, these "mini-texts" provide information uncommon to most home bread books, rendered in simple language that allays fears of putting one's hand in the dough.

All this is impressive indeed, and readers bitten by the bread-baking bug will welcome the ultra-thorough Beranbaum approach. The less committed may find her technical demands too painstaking (her baguette recipe requires two starters, for example; though simpler loaves are, of course, offered) or even impractical (ingredient quantities using grams are sometimes given in minute fractions, requiring a special scale). The frequent inclusion of alternate mixing methods and equipment options can also make the formulas unwieldy. On the other hand, features like Pointers for Success and Understanding often yield exciting discovery as well as rewarding results. In short, this Beranbaum bible answers virtually every bread-making question, as well as providing exemplary formulas. It's the real deal for those willing to bake along with Rose. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

As in her seminal The Cake Bible, which won an IACP prize, Beranbaum doesn't just offer recipes here; she dissects them, explains how they work, then puts them back together again with a number of variations. The front matter to what Beranbaum terms her "bread biography" contains perhaps the best explanation anywhere of how yeast works and a description of the sponge method used for almost every yeast-risen bread. Each recipe also includes a "Rose ratio," which shows at a glance the percentage of water, yeast, flour and fat in each bread. The author's discussion of the pros and cons of various kneading methods (bread machine, by hand, etc.) is invaluable. After all this information, bakers will be eager to get to the recipes, which are equally rewarding. Beranbaum covers everything from a Chocolate Bread made with cocoa nibs to a Traditional Challah. Recipes are arranged by type of bread, with groups including sandwich loaves and dinner rolls and brioche breads. A chapter on artisanal hearth breads includes Heart of Wheat Bread, with wheat germ for extra crunch, and New Zealand Almond and Fig Bread with an apricot glaze. Every time Beranbaum seems about to go overboard with too much information, she steps back from the brink, as in the excellent introduction to sourdough, where she thoroughly explains how sourdough works, then provides a simple box with eight rules for making a starter. Beranbaum could have a second career as a scientist, but luckily for home bakers she seems intent on creating a library of seminal cookbooks instead.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (October 17, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393057941
• ISBN-13: 978-0393057942
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 1.7 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (170 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Baking > Bread

More About the Author

Rose Levy Beranbaum is the award-winning author of nine cookbooks, including The Cake Bible, the International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook of the Year for 1988. It was also listed by the James Beard Foundation as one of the top 13 baking books on "the Essential Book List." Rose also won a James Beard Foundation Award in 1998 for Rose's Christmas Cookies, and her book, The Bread Bible, was an IACP and James Beard Foundation nominee and was listed as one of the Top Ten Books of 2003 by Publishers Weekly and Food & Wine. Her most recent book, Rose's Heavenly Cakes, won the International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook of the Year for 2010. She is a contributing editor to Food Arts magazine and writes regularly for the Washington Post, Fine Cooking, Reader's Digest, and Bride's. Her popular blog, realbakingwithrose.com, has created an international community of bakers where you can visit Rose Levy Beranbaum and join in the discussion on all things baking. While you are there, you can bring the author right into your kitchen as she demonstrates key techniques and shares trade secrets so that you can create perfectly divine cakes.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

209 of 213 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars CORRECTION FROM THE AUTHOR November 27, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Re the rye bread, on page 326, step 2, delete the words 'rye flour.' (the rye flour is used only in the sponge on page 325.) Also, on the chart for the flour mixture, the 2 1/4 cups of bread flour weigh 12.3 ounces.
Hope you are enjoying the recipes. If you haven't used the instant yeast before, you're going to love the ease and reliability of adding it directly to the flour!
Best bread baking,
Rose Levy Beranbaum

179 of 186 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Rose has done it again... created a classic, that is October 20, 2003

By L Goodman-Malamuth VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Cookbook author/humorist Ann Hodgman once wrote, of Rose Levy Berenbaum's masterpiece The Cake Bible, that perhaps The Gideons should leave this "bible" in hotel bedrooms instead of that other, better-known one. Hodgman has a point. I have baked extensively from both of Berenbaum's previous "bibles," on cake and on pastry, and have yet to come up with a dud.

Since we're talking about bibles here, clearly Berenbaum finds that God is in the details. She gives clear, concise explanations of the "whys" of baking without ever getting tedious. I have been baking regularly for nearly thirty years, and yet in my first read-through of The Bread Bible, I learned at least a dozen facts that I hadn't previously known, and yet made perfect sense. For example, the inclusion of Wondra bleached, granulated flour (not a typical staple among serious bakers) in her Butter Popovers eliminate the resting period that the batter typically must undergo before baking.

Her books also inspire: A round, Gruyere-spiked cheese bread baked in a souffle dish--which Berenbaum whimsically names, "The Stud Muffin"--will send me out today on a quick trip for a couple of necessary, missing ingredients.

Berenbaum's recipes run the gamut from simple "quick" breads to more time-consuming (but hardly more difficult) artisanal loaves. She also provides sources for ingredients and equipment. This tome, with its gorgeous photographs and numerous line drawings, might intimidate some fledgling bakers, but don't let it! If it does, I suggest The King Arthur Flour's Baker's Companion. However, true breadheads are justified in wanting both.

Rose Levy Berenbaum's passion both for detail and for routinely spectacular results reminds me of Maida Heatter, whose equally comprehensive and delightful baking books inspired beginning bakers like me more than twenty years ago. Heatter's books have withstood the test of time. I'm sure Berenbaum's Bread Bible will become as annotated and batter-spattered as Heatter's books are in my kitchen. There's no higher praise than that!

113 of 119 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If "Beard on Bread" is the "Old Testament," November 16, 2003

By Lawrence W. Prichard

Format:Hardcover

Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible" is the "New Testament"!There are now many good bread books, but if I could have only one bread book, this would be the one.Ms. Beranbaum includes non-yeasted breads in this book.Oh, this book is so good. I have been baking bread for over 15 years, and I knew more than a little, but this book has opened a wider world. She has diminished some of my anxiety about sourdough bread, by talking about her sourdough anxiety, which she vanquished.Ms. Beranbaum encourages mechanical mixing, and does not consider it a "crime," like some other writers on bread. However, manual mixing is included. She has written lots of information on flours. Detailed, yet accessible.She encourages home bakers to think in more professional terms by giving weight measures (grams and ounces,) as well as volume measures (cups, spoons). She also gives proportion percentages.Ms Beranbaum's introductory comments are fascinating.The index is complete and easy to use.The photos and technical drawings are complete and well chosen.This book is definitely one of MY "desert island ten."