Customer Reviews

The Il Fornaio Baking Book: Sweet and Savory Recipes from the Italian Kitchen

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have long felt that Il Fornaio's restaurants are the closest thing to eating in Italy in this country (USA). In my many trips to the San Francisco Bay area, I have always made it standard procedure to go to Il Fornaio for at least an evening, and usually breakfast as well, to be reminded of my all-too-short time in Italy. I have never been disappointed. Quite the contrary, I'm frequently stunned and delighted at the quality of food and service they provide. Naturally, when I ran across this book, I was so excited, I could hardly wait to get home and begin baking some of the wondrous items they so capably turn out every day.

I would add to the previous review that Italian cooking in general (and particularly recipes from the Emilia-Romagna region a la The Splendid Table) is at once sublimely simple and intimidatingly complex, requiring many subtle layers of preparation and execution. For all the spectacular effort some of these recipes require in all but the best-stocked of kitchens, however, the results will astound you with their beauty, their unfailing goodness, and the pure spirit of the Italians' passion for life, family, and truly great food.

This is not to say beginners should avoid this book. Rather, beginners should seek out this book to learn that with which Franco Galli has successfully imbued this gorgeous (and extremely tactile) book... the tried and true methods of Old World baking. It is filled to the brim with useful information on ingredients, techniques, stories, history, and peppered with the occasional bit of good humor that makes me long for a childhood spent in Italy, learning traditions passed on through untold generations.

My hat is off to Franco Galli in grateful acknowledgement for his tremendous restaurants, this excellent book (thank you thank you thank you), and the chance to live a tiny piece of Italy through his life experience as a baker. As a footnote, I have so far not experienced any of the measurement inaccuracies mentioned in the previous review.

The Il Fornaio Baking Book was the first cookbook I ever bought. I had never baked before, but was attracted by the striking cover and the handsome layout of the book. I had spent a fair amount of time in Italy, so I was very familiar with many of the breads/sweets contained in the book, and there was an Il Fornaio bakery right down the street so I could always test their products to see how they should come out. This is definitely not a book for the beginning baker because it does not go heavy into detail about techniques of bread- baking. It proceeds assuming that the reader already knows how to get out of "sticky" situations. The recipes for bread require a fair amount of time, compared to other bread books-- Three rises is the average for the breads, and all are rather labor-intensive. Although I only tried the Biscotti recipe from the sweets section, I found it to have some incorrect proportions (i.e. too little flour was listed in the ingredients), and there were similar errors in other recipes. If, however, you are an experienced baker, and have foresight to always keep starter on hand (all the bread recipes use starter), then this is an excellent book for making very authentic, near perfect reproductions of what you can buy in any Italian bakery in Italy.

The recipes in this book are described so well that even a novice baker will turn out world class loaves of bread. All through my college years I worked in a Pizza restaurant. I made pizza dough by following the directions on the 25lb bag of pizza flour. That had been my only baking experinece, but after deciding to attempt baking bread at home, I bought this book. My first loaf turned out better than anything I could buy at a supermarket.

For anyone that has had the opportunity to visit one of their restaurants, now you can enjoy their baked goods at home. All of their receipes are fairly easy to follow and follow you must! These dishes are a lot like a science project. mix the wrong item or quantity and it is all over. Follow closely and you will be rewarded with some of the finest breads and desserts around. The Tiramisu receipe is one of the best around. I have served it several times and it is a party favorite. I have tried countless other receipes and found this one the best their is. The soups can make a complete meal in themselves. Buy this book and you won't regret it.

I live in the San Francisco-Bay Area, where Il Fornaio is a legendary chain of Italian bakeries where you can get fabulous bread. Unfortunately, this book is not as good as the bread.

The highlight of the book is the bread in the first chapter, but I note the following deficiencies:
1) The recipes for Pagnotta, ciabatta, pane toscano, and sfilatano (which all use the same dough) are not the ones I have eaten from the bakery.
2) biga acida isn't. Their recipe may work in commercial bakeries that are laden with yeast spores in the air, but in a home kitchen that has never made bread, all you will get is moldy flour batter.
3) all breads are kneaded and proofed in exactly the same time; I doubt that this is correct, since this will vary with the hydration level of the dough.
4) The instructions call fo 20 + 5 minutes of manual kneading, and this is not correct. When I did it, they required a mere 10 minutes.
5) the author commits the baker's sin of not specifying flour amounts by weights.
6) when I did them, the rather informal nature of the recipes bothered me, as I was not sure that an amateur who has never made bread before will have success with them.
7) when placing dough into the oven, all the recipes inveigh "with a rythmic snap of the wrist". Problem is, the author never fully explains what this means.
8) I have similar complaints about the chapters on special breads, little breads, and pizzas.

On the good side, the bread dough make-up instructions use kneading by hand, and not a mixer. The recipe selection for the traditional bread chapter is very good, as it has all of the really popular ones that you would want. On the other hand, the informal and friendly nature of the instructions will encourage more people to try them, and this is a good thing.

I have not really gone through the recipes in the last 2 chapters on cookies or sweets. The recipe count is rather low - 13 and 16 respectively - but the recipes are the popular ones you will most want to do. The problem here is that the instructions are rather informal. The procedures for Torta D'Alassio (like a Sacher torte that uses the modified creaming method and hazelnuts) and Pasta Frollo (tart dough) are not easy to do correctly, but the recipes are casually tossed off in a couple of brief sentences, in the same space it uses to describe how to do garlic toast. You will also need a hand-held electric mixer; no alternatives are provided.

The book suffers from side-bar mania. Brief stories or helpful hints are in small, italicized type in side-bars that are of dark, brown color; they are difficult to read, even if the lighting at your reading table is very good.

It has chapters on traditional breads, special breads, little breads, pizza, leftover bread recipes, cookies, sweets.

I use this book on a weekly basis. The formulas are relatively easy to use, and you end up with flavorful crusty loaves of bread. The pizza dough recipe is the best I have found. I have tried other books, with varying degrees of success, but this book is always helpful. The hardest thing to remember to make the starter ahead of time. I have found that most of the recipes can be adjusted successfully if you want a higher whole grain content or you wish to add other flavoring ingredients (ie roasted garlic or sundried tomatoes).

I've made bread for about 15 years, mostly sourdoughs or mixed-starter breads. Il Fornaio is one of the two best books on baking bread I've come across... it is a book which makes really amazing results possible even for someone with more limited experience with bread-baking. I have lived in Germany, where the bread is REALLY good, and still made white bread and rolls and pizza from this book... it's that good. I was puzzled to read one of the reviews that said the book wasn't as good as the bakery... I put that down to not following the directions properly... the quantities are not as important as the factors mentioned in the book - dough texture (which should be sticky) and the moisture in the oven (easily attained by putting a frying pan in the bottom of the oven and pouring water into it). I can't recommend this book enough.

With my husband having been in the bakery trade and having a GREAT appreciation for the art of bread baking, we found this book the easiest of all! It will help me master the Nancy Silverton LaBrea Bread baking book, which I also treasure. Like anything done well it takes practice... and the aromas are worth the work. Thank goodness for my KitchenAid mixer!

I was so relieved to find this out-of-print book. It was in great condition and perfect for a Christmas gift.

I've made a lot of the recipes in this book. I keep the starter Biga in the freezer at all times. The rosemary bread is one my guests often request I make. The book is a bit wordy, which is why it's not 5 star review.

The Almond Cantucci di Prato (Biscotti) are amazing and always a big hit. They keep for a long, long time.

If you like the crispy breadsticks that checkered table cloth Italian restaurants have in a large glass on the table, take the time to make the Grissini Torinesi recipe on Page 88. They are crispy and wonderful. In an airtight container they'll last stay fresh a long time. If you can resist eating them.