The book won the IACP award for the "Best First Cookery Book" and was overall winner of the "IACP 2006 Cookbook of the Year". With a recommendation like that, it would seem that this is bread book that is hard to beat. I have made a few of his recipes, watched the very good DVD, and studied the book closely. I made fougasse, bread shots, baguette, epis, focaccia, and a couple of others.
I had to be very careful using the book because of the numerous confusions and inconsistencies. For example, a recipe ( page 33) calls for "1/3 ounce (10g) fresh yeast, 18 ounces (no grams specified) white bread flour, and 12 1/2 ounces water (or 13 fl. oz. in a measuring cup - just over 1 1/2 cups, but weighing is more accurate). Notice the confusion between avoirdupois ounces and fluid ounces. Other recipes combine fluid ounces, avoirdupois ounces, and tablespoons. I am also unsure if he uses British fluid ounces or American fluid ounces; there is a difference in weight.
Bertinet is a French baker who runs a cooking school in Bath, England. It's interesting that in the list of credits, among the Copy editor and the Indexer, there is an "Americaniser", a job I have never heard of before! It is obvious that no one proofed this book as well as they did the bread. Indeed, I wonder if, in picking this book for the prize, anyone actually made any of the bread or if they just liked the look of the book and the fact that it had a DVD with it.
Actually the book is good and the recommended way of handling the dough makes an excellent crumb. The baguettes and epis were great. I think it's a pretty good book for the home baker once the reader can figure out the recipes.
