An instant classic upon publication in 1978, THE BREADS OF FRANCE introduced American bakers to the pleasures of French artisanal breads. Author Bernard Clayton spent years visiting boulangeries both famous and unknown, collecting authentic bread recipes from some of the most esteemed bakers in France. The resulting treasure trove includes such classic regional breads as Petits Pains au Chocolat from Bracieux, Pain de Campagne from the Parisian master baker Poilâne, and Pumpkin-Cornmeal Bread from the French Basque country. Clayton’s recipes are written in a unique step-by-step style—instructions lucid and complete, questions anticipated and answered—that evolved from his experiences teaching bread-baking classes. Filled with delightful vignettes of French culture, history, and bread-baking lore and charming black-and-white photographs, The Breads of France is not just a glorious collection of bread recipes—it’s a window onto the world’s richest, most storied bread-baking tradition.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
A beautiful collection of classical and regional breads, with clearly written, well-presented recipes. -- Los Angeles Magazine
About the Author
Bernard Clayton, Jr., is one of our country’s most revered bread bakers and best-selling cookbook writers. Credited with introducing artisanal French baking to the United States, he has influenced dozens of today’s leading bakers. A former writer and editor at Indiana University and a Time-Life correspondent, Mr. Clayton resides in Bloomington, Indiana.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For those who want a magical baking experience,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Breads of France: And How to Bake Them in Your Own Kitchen (Culinary Classics & Curios) (Hardcover)
Bought this book in 1979 and have made almost every recipe in it. Bernard Clayton is meticulous with his instructions and, if you follow them exactly, you will have amazingly delicious results. Every recipe is a treasure -- I have so many favorites. It is fascinating to learn about the dramatic differences in taste and texture that result from slight variations in ingredients (starter made with white vs. whole wheat, for example, or a tablespoon of honey or a splash of buttermilk), and modest variations in technique. A few years ago, my family and I made a pilgrimage to the rue Cherche Midi to sample the bread in Poilane's bakery. I was amazed to find that the baguette tasted almost exactly like the one I had been making at home in my own oven for more than 20 years! I own many bread books, but this is the one I love best because these are the recipes that give me the greatest pleasure to make.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Its not all baguettes.,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Breads of France: And How to Bake Them in Your Own Kitchen (Culinary Classics & Curios) (Hardcover)
I found a ... paperback copy of the book and bought it primarily for the pictures of the many different shapes and types of bread in France. It is useful for that but has value for the many recipes included. I first tried the recipe for the Poilane boule. My effort was creditable, quite edible, and with a few hundred repetions may approach the original. There are many recipes for many breads from many regions of France. As a reference for the many possibilities it is excellent. While it is not the first book a novice to bread baking should acquire, it is an excellent one for someone whose interest in the subject has undergone at least the first fermentation.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not For Beginners,
By jerry i h (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Breads of France: And How to Bake Them in Your Own Kitchen (Culinary Classics & Curios) (Hardcover)
The author wrote this book when most of us got our bread in the supermarket in white plastic bags with colored ballons on the label. The French are the best bread bakers in the world. Their love of great bread shows in the wild profusion of wonderful loaves that can be found throughout France. This book is a rather personal selection of recipes for breads that tickled the author's fancy during his explorations of French boulangeries. The author has taken the time to travel intimately through France, discovered many wonderful artisan breads, and gotten the recipes from the bakers. The recipes collected here are historically important. Not only are they wonderful things, but I would be willing to wager that many of these bakeries have gone extinct in the 3 decades since the author wrote this book. Most of the recipes are for famous, popular, or traditional breads that one would find in a French bakery, not those from French homes. There is no attempt to systematically treat all the major breads of France. If you have a basic understanding of making bread in your kitchen at home, this book will take you on a tour of all the wonderful, artisanal breads from France, home of the best bread in the universe. The variety of shapes, colors, and flavors from reasonably straight forward recipes was very satisfying.
The author has thoughtfully tested the artisan bread recipes he got, and come up with reasonably recipes that should more or less work in your kitchen. These recipes were written at the side of the oven, and not just on a computer like many other best-selling, current bread books I could name. The recipes themselves are rather problematic. If you are an experienced baker, you will find a wild profusion of artisan breads that you can do in your home kitchen. If you are a beginner and still trying to the hang of making bread, avoid this book as it is not an educational or learning tool. You need to be a good bread baker before you can make these recipes work correctly, and the author seems to assume that you have already mastered some of his other bread books. The recipe instructions can be downright terse. The author often does not clearly delineate when something is properly kneaded, sufficiently proofed, or correctly baked. He often does not include sufficient instructions on the proper method of mixing or kneading doughs. Each recipe step has a specific number of minutes, a very nice touch, but bread should be made by feel, not by the clock. Most recipes are kneaded by hand, not mixer. There are no sourdough recipes, although some call for overnight proofing of the yeast. This is the first book, to my knowledge, to advocate pre-ferments, biga, poolish, pate fermentee, etc., even though he does not use these trendy terms. All recipes start with ordinary yeast you can get in the grocery store. Typical even of breads in France today, most recipes call for all purpose flour and not bread flour. In general, the recipes fall under the brioche, croissant, rye, or direct methods are not terribly difficult for the experience home bread baker. A few recipes require that you start the recipe a day or two before the day you want to bake, so that the yeast will develope depth of flavor. All of the recipes are listed in the table of contents, a nice editorial touch I wish more authors and their editors would emulate. The original copyright on this book is 1978, but this reprint is dated 2002. Sadly, the information on available tools, sources of ingredients, etc., has not been updated. The recipes are organized according to region, not the classification of the bread. At the head of each region, the author includes a very nice travel log of the region and where he got the recipes from. Despite the time the author spent in France doing research on bread, he seems not to have learned a key principle that flour should be measured by weight and not by volume. Not only do all recipes use cups of flour as the measure, he never specifies how he measures flour into the cup. Only in an obscure table on the last page do we learn that a cup of the author's flour weighs 4 3/4 oz, suggesting that he uses the dip and sweep method of flour measure. Most, but not all, of the recipes have pictures. It is a shame that these are not in color, as color is the best tool for judging when something is properly baked. As they say, a picture (in this case, a color one) is worth a thousand words.
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