Dough: Simple Contemporary Breads [Hardcover]

Richard Bertinet (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Bertinet takes the scare out of making homemade bread with a lot of step-by-step photographs' -- Wilkes Barre Times Leader, Pennysylvania

'Make sure you read this book on a full stomach, or the stunning photographs will send you to the breadbox.' -- The Fresno Bee

Not only is the basic technique for bread in Dough quicker, easier and less floury, but it is laid out in step-by-step color photos and on a DVD that is invaluable. --Los Angeles Times, November 29, 2005

Product Description

For all those who do not want to eat mass produced sliced bread filled with chemicals and preservatives, help is at hand. Chef, teacher and baker extraordinaire Richard Bertinet gets back to basics and shows that, far from being hard or time-consuming, baking bread is quick and easy. Dough breaks down the bread making process into easy-to-follow and achievable steps using just four simple ingredients - yeast, flour, water and salt. An instructional DVD accompanies the book to help illustrate and ease the process of working with dough.

In his book Bertinet explores five different doughs – White, Olive, Brown, Rye and Sweet - and shows how from these 'parent' doughs you can bake a vast variety of breads really easily. Though the doughs vary, the technique for making each one is identical. The beauty of it is that it takes no time at all to fill a bread basket with, say, striking looking Fougasse, Breadsticks or Spicy Moroccan rolls (from the White Dough chapter) or Poppy Seed Stars, Sesame plaits and chunks of Pecan and Cranberry, or Cardamom and Prune bread (from the Brown chapter) and no one will guess that they are all part of the same 'family'. Most of the breads take less than 1 hour to bake and many of the recipes can be part-baked and frozen, ready to finish off in the oven at any time.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Kyle Books; Har/DVD edition (October 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904920209
• ISBN-13: 978-1904920205
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #53,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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  Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Baking > Bread

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good book with some problems, May 15, 2006

By	Charles J. Robinove "BBGA SHB" (Monument CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dough: Simple Contemporary Breads (Hardcover)

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.

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best of Simple Breadmaking, January 22, 2006

By	A. Lupia "amlbee" (Branford, CT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dough: Simple Contemporary Breads (Hardcover)

Well, I found another gem...this book is just plain lovely. Richard Bertinet loves to bake bread. And he passes this on to the reader through his style, technique and results. Very clear explainations of ingredients, procedures, time required and with beautiful pictures on quality paper. Oh, and you get an instructional CD. It just doesn't get much better.

I have been baking bread for almost thirty years. Not always regularly since my kids are older, but enough to still love to learn a thing or two, or more from this book about flours, fresh yeast, a different way to work the dough. Not an all-inclusive book on bread, but rather a book of just what the title says, simple contemporary bread. I don't know that there is anything radically different in this book; it simply inspires and excites: Not too bad in itself. It also helps you to make darned good bread. The Fougasse is worth the price of the book alone.

Even if you have never baked a loaf in your life, give this a look. This book takes bread baking to exactly what it is: Flour, yeast, water, salt and your hands. This is not rocket science, this is simple, classy comfort. Perfect.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed Technique, April 20, 2006

By	J. Henry (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dough: Simple Contemporary Breads (Hardcover)

The DVD included with this book gives the most detailed visual instructions on creating bread dough that I have ever seen, much less read. I'm not an avid reader of bread-specific baking books, but the instructions included with the bread recipes in the more general baking books that I own devote about two sentences to how to actually mix the flour with the wet ingredients and develop the dough.

This book presents an entire philosophy, and the results have been fantastic. Acceptance of the proper higher initial moisture level and the use of the stretching technique presented here have truly elevated our breads and our interest in breadmaking to a whole new level.