Product Description
With everything from raspberry-millet muffins to oatmeal rolls with herbs and sun-dried tomatoes, veteran bread maker and author Beth Hensperger is back with a delightful book on baking with whole grains. Using clear, easy-to-follow instructions, Hensperger lays out foolproof methods for handling over a dozen kinds of grains and flours, including tips and recipes for bread machine users. Filled with mouthwatering color photographs, The Pleasure of Whole Grain Breads offers speedy quick breads for the busy cook, slow-rising yeast breads for the dedicated baker, and intriguing cross-cultural recipes (including Ethiopian injera, French chickpea crepes, and quinoa tortillas) for the culinary globetrotter. Healthy, delicious, and surprisingly simple to bake, these are whole grain breads to please every eater.Amazon.com Review
A is for amaranth, b for barley. Or buckwheat. Look for corn,millet, oats, quinoa, rice, rye, and teff as well. Wheat and wild ricebring up the rear, along with a handful of specialty flours. Such are thebase ingredients in Beth Hensperger's inspiring The Pleasure ofWhole Grain Breads. You may recognize Hensperger as the author of The Bread Bible, Beth's Basic Bread Book,and Baking Bread.She knows of what she speaks.

Hensperger includes recipes for everything from waffles to muffins (Englishand regular), tortillas and biscuits, spice bread and pancakes. But theheart of the book is a wonderful array of breads. Whole-wheat andunbleached all-purpose flour may be the workhorses of these recipes, butthe magic happens with the addition of other whole grains you may not haveconsidered. Each lends its own flavor and texture. You know going in thatthe Three-Grain Vanilla Waffles with amaranth flour and toasted amaranth seedsare going to take you places you have never been before.

The book opens with some brief yet concise basic instructions on breadmaking and baking, as well as the how-to of kneading andrising. Hensperger also tips her hat to machines with specific recipesand with explicit recommendations for machines that do the necessarywork. Anyone who has experienced the delight of home-baked bread isgoing to love adding this extra layer of experience to theirrepertoire. Let Beth Hensperger show you the way with The Pleasureof Whole Grain Breads.--Schuyler Ingle ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

great grains!
love the format/design of the book. and the recipes that i've tried so far have worked out great. the masa biscuits have already assumed a regular spot in my repetoire. the barley blueberry muffins are great too. can't wait to try more of them.

Beautiful book with great recipes
This is a great book with really interesting recipes. The photographs are beautiful and make you want to try the recipes. There's a good introduction to each grain and enough variety of recipes that there's a bread for justabout everyone. My only disappointment is that almost all the recipesrequire at least some white flour.

The Pleasure of Whole Grain Breads
This books has excellent recipes in it and is a must for anybody with a bread machine. This is an excellent introduction to a new baker looking to work with whole grains. I am sending it as a gift to others.It'sbeautiful as well as fun to use. ... Read more

Product Description
Take the 100 best recipes from the author's much-loved The Art of Quick Breads, stir in 50 scrumptiously brand-new creations, and you have enough terrific quick breads to last a lifetime. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Great Book
This book is informative and helpful. Its one of those books you pass around at a home gathering and all oogle over the great sounding recipes. This book was a Christmas Present and yet have to make anything from it. However the book is easily read and understood. This is for a man and we know what they are like in the kitchen
I find this book to be a great buy !!

Pro gives the green light
I have been a professional research and production baker.This book gave me information I did not already know.I wish I were fifteen again so that I would have time to make every formula in this book, and enjoy the hard work of a great author for all those missed years.

excellent bread baking book
This is definitely the ultimate book for baking all sorts of bread meals.Corn bread, scones, gingerbread, pretty much ANYTHING you want to know about cooking bread can be found in this very convenient book.The book does a nice job of showing you how easy it is to cook anything related to bread.It's also a pretty good learning experience, personally.

Quantity Over Quality
This a decent, but not outstanding collection of quick bread recipes.Having a complete assembly of recipes in one book is a great convenience.Normally, I have to flip through a number of cookbooks to get the quick bread I want, since each one has only a few such recipes.The recipes themselves, however, are pretty standard, and you probably already many similar recipes in the baking books you have on your bookshelf.I do recommend this one, but only because of the convenience of having all the quick bread recipes in one place. The main advantage is that when you are looking for a very good quick bread recipe, you only have to search through this book, rather than having a pile of a dozen or so baking books on your desk.

All of the recipes in the cornbread chapter have flour, rather than the genuine article that does not have flour. The muffin chapter was pretty pitiful, as was the coffee cakes. The pancake chapter would be more useful if the author described the character of the particular pancake (light and fluffy, thick and rich, thin and rubbery-in the good sense, spidery and lacy, etc.) rather than regale you with anecdotal stories.There are several rare and valuable crepe recipes, but the recipes for the fillings are below average.A significant minority of the recipes seems to be nothing more than manuscript padding; I am not convinced that the author actually tested all of the recipes (viz: the ones that add cooked rice, since they were either gritty or lumpy; the recipes for microwave fruit jam were laughable, not to mention dangerous).Most of the waffle recipes are the wierd ones requiring egg whites beaten to soft peaks. The author has also picked up the bad habit of adding whole grains and/or dried fruit to just about everything for a healthy and nutritious treat (derived from either "Recipe/Diet for a Small Planet", the worst cookbooks ever, or else British baking books).

The last chapter is a reasonably useful compendium of ingredients, techniques, and equipment.Some sort of table of contents of this chapter would have been useful.The sections on eggs, salt, sugar and oil are predominantly wrong.Several recipes call for beaten egg whites, but detailed instructions for doing so are not forthcoming.

It has chapters on: loaf breads, gingerbreads, cornbreads, coffee cakes, muffins, pancakes, crepes, waffles, popovers, dumplings, scones, and biscuits.

The Bread Queen
I love this book because our family is a "Sunday Brunch" crowd. We make a brunch each and every Sunday and have a great time. Of course there is always a sweet bread/coffee cake and most of the time it comes from this book or the author's other book: Breakfast Breads - which I also highly recommend.

Who wouldn't want to wake up to the smell of homemade bread (even if it's quick bread) and fresh coffee?

I hope you enjoy it as much we do! ... Read more

Product Description
This pleasing selection of 68 recipes lets today's bakers create the old-fashioned flavors grandma used to make while meeting the time constraints of the 1990s. Easy-to-follow instructions make creating muffins, quick breads, biscuits and scones, coffee cakes, and yeast breads simple and rewarding. Full-page, full-color photos will inspire readers to make the recipes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

one of Better Homes & Gardens Better Books
A splendid little recipe book for muffins and breads put forth by Better Homes & Gardens.This book has several interesting recipes for what is listed in the title.Also, a few dessert recipes as well.All in all a worthwhile book with several appealing recipes. Better Homes & Gardens at its best! ... Read more

Product Description

Revised and Updated for the Best Electric Bread Machines

After Lora Brody and Millie Apter discovered the joys of baking bread in electric bread machines, they decided to create and swap new recipes. Lora would rave about a newly developed recipe and send it to Millie, who would have disastrous results with it. What was going on?

This mother-daughter team soon learned that the same recipe did not work in all machines, so it was back to the kitchen. After months of testing, they found that the amounts of ingredients and the order in which they are put into the machine affect the taste, crust, and the crumb of the bread. Thanks to them, now you too can discover the best ways to make bakery fresh bread at the touch of a button!

Bread Machine Baking: Perfect Every Time has two features not found in other bread machine books:

• Each recipe is geared to a specific electric bread machine. All of the 75 recipes have been individually developed for and tested in every machine on the market.

• The innovative sweet and savory bread recipes, ranging from Lemon Mint Bread to Olive Onion Bread, and Granola Cranberry Bread to Chocolate Pecan Biscotti, were developed especially for this book.

Product Description
An inspired collection of recipes includes informative essays on the history and traditions of bread making and provides American equivalents in recipes for all types of breads, yeast buns, pancakes, muffins, crumpets, oatcakes, pizzas, dumplings, soda breads, and more. IP. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A one-star edition of a five star book
The introduction to the original US edition by Karen Hess has been replaced by a puff-piece of foodie journalism and to add insult to injury the table of contents lists the original introduction.Get the original!

The History of English Bread
This book is what culinary writing should be: comprehensive, thoroughly researched, reliable, unimpeachable. My only complaint is the title: this book is about the history of English baking, not a cookbook of baking as it currently exists in England. If you have ever wondered what English bread used to be like, and are conversely appalled by what is sold by the English today as bread, this book is for you. The author has systematically studied entire libraries of cookbooks of centuries past, and culled and adapted recipes that are of current interest.

The author reveals the true travesty of modern English bread baking. Most such recipes use chemical leavening, e.g. baking soda and/or baking powder, which produces what we have come to know of as English bread, e.g. masonry material but not human food. Indeed, much flour sold in England today is `self rising' flour, which is the English equivalent of American pastry flour with a little baking powder mixed in. The author has revived the original bread and pastry and baking recipes of centuries past that use yeast as leavening; as such, they are airy, light, chewy, good baked goods. The author has devoted entire chapters to rolls, fruit breads, crumpets and English muffins, bread, and cakes, all of which use yeast and are closer to baked goods in modern day France and Italy rather than England.

The chapter on fruit cake (bread) is especially illuminating. Current incarnations of said recipe conjures images of inedible bricks. The recipes expounded by the author are authentic, historical ones thoroughly vetted, and resemble panettone, brioche, and stollen of modern baking, and not the travesties of American holiday sales.

The first half is an impressive reference of tools, ingredients, history, techniques, and stories about bread in Britain of centuries past. It is a valuable book for bread bakers to have on the shelf. Many bread baking book authors give large credit to this book.

One complaint about the format. The TOC lists only the chapter titles, and not the recipes contained therein; some chapters, like the bread chapter, have dozens of recipes. Like many current bread books, this one has disappointingly vague descriptions about how long to knead breads, properly proofed, and how to tell when it is properly baked. Judging by the recipes, the author tends to prefer softer, under developed breads.

Very Important book on Bread and its history. Buy It!
`English Bread and Yeast Cookery' by Elizabeth David hides, behind its very unassuming title, one of the very best books on bread baking I have seen and possibly Elizabeth David's very best work, in a body of work which includes some of the great classics in culinary writing from the last 60 years.

For starters, the book is much more than a collection of English bread baking recipes. In the 592 pages in this edition, bread recipes don't even start until page 255. The first half of the book deals with just about everything you ever wanted to know about how residents of the British Isles, beginning with the pre-Roman Celts ground wheat into flour, what kind of ovens they used to bake bread, and how all this evolved through the Roman occupation, the Saxons, the Normans, and the modern English, especially how things changed with the industrial revolution.

The first part, nearly half the book covers `History and Background' with chapters on:

Grains, Wheat, Rye, Barley, Oats, and Pease
Milling
Flours and Meals
Yeast
Salt
Liquids and Fats
Eggs, Dried Fruit, Sugar, Spices and Flavorings
Malt Extracts
Bread Ovens
The Bread Factories
Shapes and Names of English Loaves
Moulds and Tins for Bread
Storage of Meal and Flour
Storage of Bread
Weights of Loaves and the Assize of Bread
Weights, Measures and Temperatures
Weighing and Measuring Equipment
The Cost of Baking Your Own Bread

It should be evident from this list of chapters that the material in this book goes far beyond bread baking on a largish island in the North Atlantic. The analysis in the last of these chapters alone may be worth the price of admission. What is doubly surprising is that these chapters include material which seems more at home in a book like Rachael Carson's `Silent Spring' than a book on bread recipes. This is a bit less surprising when we realize the book was written in the 1970s, not too far removed from food rationing left over from World War II and before the widespread popular concern in England with the nutritious value of food.

The second half of the book, the recipes, clearly also goes beyond what you would expect from the average English tea room. The chapters here are:

Bread
Baps and Rolls
Manchets and Mayn and Payndemayn
Crumpets and Muffins
Notes on French Bread
The Pizza and the Pissaladiere
Quiches with Yeast Dough
Sausage in Brioche Crust
Yeast Leavened Pancakes and Oatcakes
Dumplings and Doughnuts
Regional and Festival Cakes and Fruit Breads
Yeast Buns and Small Tea Cakes
French Yeast Cakes
Soda Breads
Bakestone Cakes or Breads
Toast

Since there is a chapter on Soda Breads, it is evident that the book covers more than just yeast breads. The yeasted pancakes also highlights the fact that our modern baking powder leavened hotcakes are a relatively new invention, as baking powder was not commercially available until the middle of the 19th century. Yeast, on the other hand, has been around and used in beer making since prehistoric times. And, with just a little technique, it was free for the asking from ambient spores in the air.

In case you are curious, a bap is the breakfast roll of Scotland and manchets and mayn and payndemayn are old English names (found in the `Canterbury Tales' and other old documents) for enriched white breads baked for and eaten by wealthier classes.

If you are a serious foodie, a serious amateur or professional bread baker, or simply seriously, or even frivolously interested in bread, you must get a copy of this book. Even if you don't read it from cover to cover, it's a great reference on the history, science and technique of breadbaking. It's only weakness may be that it is not as up to date on modern American bread ingredients as you may find in a King Arthur cookbook or `bible' from Rose Levy Beranbaum. But then, there are hundreds of pages of material you will find here and virtually nowhere else in an in print book.

Very highly recommended!!!

A medley of culinary delights:
The sensuous aroma of baking bread filled my mind as I read the exquisite prose of Elizabeth David. Perfect for those who have the original old English oven and owning your own flour mill will increase the enjoyment of making these rare breads. As I devoured my domestically produced delights, an almost orgasmic pleasure assaulted my sensory organs. There are no greater pleasures in the world than these.

Informative and engaging
Not just a cookbook, though there are plenty of recipes.Not merely a history, though abounding in historical sources and anecdotes.Not a textbook, but with enough theory for just about anyone.Not literatureproper, but Ms. David's prose flows beautifully.The book issimultaneously informative, thoughtful, engaging, useful and most of all apleasure to read.The book is equally at home in the kitchen as the livingroom.Simply a wonderful book. ... Read more

Product Description

Great breads from the home kitchen. They will taste like they came from the best bakery in town.

For anyone who enjoys the flavor and aroma of freshly baked bread, nothing beats the convenience of a bread machine. This convenience is even greater for those managing a gluten intolerance. Finally here are great recipes for the food that is most strictly avoided and typically most missed in gluten-free diets: bread.

These recipes make gluten-free breads that not only taste great but are specifically designed to meet the exacting requirements of bread machines. Each recipe has been thoroughly tested to ensure successful results every time.

And what a collection of recipes it is:

Amazon.com Review
An illustrated guide for anyone who wants to master the art of baking delicious artisan breads at home

This addition to The Culinary Institute of America's "At Home" series is perfect for home bakers who want to go beyond the basics to create delicious artisan breads. Backed by the CIA's expertise, Eric Kastel leads readers through simple and challenging recipes from Baguettes, Peasant Bread, and Ciabatta to Cheddar Onion Rye Rolls, Coffee, Cake, and even Sourdough.

In addition, Artisan Breads at Home provides thorough explanations of ingredients-including flour breakdowns and chemical reactions-easy-to-understand terminology and definitions, and a detailed equipment guide.

• Includes tips, troubleshooting answers, and nearly170 full-color photos of techniques and finished breads
• Covers the basics of bread making as well as advanced techniques-from lean dough breads and rolls to flat breads and enriched doughs
• Author Eric Kastel, CMB, CHE is now Senior Manager of Bakery Projects at Panera Bread and a former associate professor of baking and pastry arts at The CIA. He has also been the head baker for Whole Foods and Bread Alone.

Artisan Breads at Home is the ideal resource for home bakers who want to take their baking to the next level of complexity and taste.

Recipe Excerpts from Artisan Breads at Home

Baguette with Poolish

Flatbread with Sun-Dried Tomato and Asiago Cheese

Rustic Rye Bread

Customer Reviews (12)

I had such high hopes for this book
I spent a lot of time looking for the right book on bread baking. I spent this time on the floor of a brick and mortar bookstore so I didn't have the benefit of other's experience. I chose this book over others for a few reasons:
1. Each recipe gives measurements in ounces, grams, volume, and bakers percentages.
2. The first few chapters provide some excellent information covering all you need to know to make bread in your own home.
3. There are a ton of recipes.
4. The steps for each recipe are very clear.
5. It has nice pictures.

I bought the book and read the informational chapters immediately. They are excellent. I am no slouch in the kitchen and I've baked plenty of bread but there was a lot of very good information and I learned a lot; ingredients, gluten development, and shaping especially. I made several recipes and they turned out fine. Then came a problem. I was measuring my ingredients for the basic white bread recipe and noticed something seemed off. The amount of bread flour was listed as 926 grams. The volume for bread flour was 3 cups plus 3 1/2 tbsp. Having an inkling that something wasn't right, I turned back to the pizza dough recipe I'd made just the other day and saw that the bread flour amounts were 872 grams or 6 cups. Now I am no mathematician but one of those is clearly wrong. After some head scratching I finally just pulled another cookbook and used that recipe for white bread while basically following the instructions in Artisan Bread at Home. While it was baking I flipped through the book and found other inconsistencies in measurements.

So it is with genuine sadness that I give this book a poor review. The information and instructions are really good. I did learn a lot from it. Unfortunately, I can not use the recipes since I can't trust that the measurements are accurate. So as a cookbook, it's worthless.

Great product, great shipper
I just got the book; it arrived in excellent condition.I'm sure this was in large part due to the excellent packaging by prariegal52.The shipment was very quick; it arrived before Amazon said it would be shiped.This supplier also worked hard to make sure the book reached me because my shipping address was not my USPS address.I will always look for her name as a supplier.A real pleasure to deal with.

For home cooks who want to bake professional quality breads
This treasure is part of the "At Home" series from the Culinary Institute of America.If you like to cook and want to bake a variety of fine breads and pastries, this is the resource for you.The book is carefully laid out so home cooks (like me) can get started with basic breads and rolls with lean and then enriched dough.We are taught how basic dough can be used, adapted and transformed for a variety of baked goods.

Before we get baking though, the authors, Eric Kastel and Cathy Charles, explain to us what Artisan Bread means, the ingredients we will be using, the basic terminology, and the kinds of equipment we will need to have the best chances for success.I love their encouragement to learn by doing and to not be discouraged if things don't work out at first.As the book notes, dough is a living thing and only experience will teach the baker how to understand what is happening to the dough and how to handle it properly to get the kind of bread we want under varying conditions.

We then get a VERY helpful chapter on the basics of bread baking.We are shown how to weigh ingredients, mix them, ferment (proof) them, fold them, divide the dough, pre-shape the bread, what bench rest is about, final shaping, how to do things like add seeds to the outside of the bread or wash it with egg, final fermentation, scoring the bread, baking the bread, cooling it and then the technique for slicing it.We also are giving instructions on how to best store the bread we have spent so much effort to make.Of course, if your house is like mine, fresh bread is devoured before it gets much of a chance to get old.One pages 4 & 5 he discusses using malted barely, but he states the properties of diastatic and non-diastatic malted barley exactly the opposite of what those who sell it say.So, I go with those who sell it.Diastatic has the enzyme and non-diastatic does not.This should be corrected in subsequent printings.

With the lean dough you will be able to make things like Hoagie and Kaiser Rolls, Whole Wheat Bread, Oatmeal Bread, Durum & Rosemary Rolls, Durum, Rosemary & Lemon Rolls,Multigrain Bread, and Rustic Rye Bread.I love the way the quantities for each recipe are given in ounces, grams, volume and the bakers % (which I still have to learn how to read).

And the photographs!Wow.The pictures of the finished items make us want to make the recipes so we can eat these delicious things.The pictures providing instruction on how to fashion the loaves, rolls, and how things should look at various stages of the process are very clear and most helpful.These photos are examples of masterful photography that contributes to our understanding of the text rather than merely decorating it.

Enriched dough yields soft rolls, white bread, whole wheat pan bread, cheddar-onion rye rolls, ham & provolone loaves, corn rolls, herb-pepper & cheese buns, soft multigrain rolls, cottage dill rolls, cinnamon-raisin swirl bread, cinnamon rolls and sticky buns, almond coffee cake, almond filling, almond twists, cream cheese & pecan coffee cake, cream cheese & apple walnut coffee cake, sunflower seed bread, caraway rye bread, and hamburger buns!

We then get a chapter on the techniques required for advanced bread making.Here you will learn about things such as specialized fermentation techniques and handling sours for those flavorful sourdough breads.

The chapter on flatbreads includes things like crackers with sun-dried tomato and Asiago cheese, Grissini, Lavash, Partha, Naan, pizza dough, pita bread, English muffins, and tortillas.

A chapter on advanced breads with preferments (leavening techniques using less yeast) includes Peasant Bread, Sesame and Asiago Wheat Bread, Semolina Bread,Pecan Raisin Bread, Apple-Cinnamon Epi, Bagels (including how to make a smooth ring!), Bialys, and Baguette with Poolish (and other preferments), Ciabatta, Pretzels, German Rye, onion breads, Focaccia, Beer Bread, and bread for Muffalettas, various kinds of onion, olive, and fruit breads, Sourdough, and other breads including sours,

There is also a chapter on breads using enriched doughs, that is heavy in sugar and fat.Think Holiday and special occasion breads.Hot Cross Buns, Gibassier, Gugelhopf, Challah, Brioche, Craquelin, Conchas, Day of the Dead Bread (pan de muerto), Chocolate & Pecan Babka, Panettone, Almond Stollen, Orahnjacha, and Utopljenici.

There is also a section on sauces and dips for the breads and an appendix and braiding and knotting that is very detailed and reminded me of my days in Boy Scouts learning to tie knots.The authors also provide a page of other readings and resources we aspiring cooks can use and a list of places to buy bread ingredients, bakeware, baking stones, cutting surfaces, and so forth.

A magnificent achievement and a wonderful help for people like me who want to expand our cooking horizons, make better breads and eat them, and wow our family and friends.

If you are in that group, I strongly recommend this book for you.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI

Great book for predictable results
I'm a very serious home baker, and I have found this book to be very useful. It's approach is no-holds-barred full-on baking, and as such, it relies on weight measurements - the only way to go for predictable results - for all ingredients including eggs (just add any extra to the egg wash). There are several recipes that create a base for others, such as a common sweet dough for coffee cakes, cinnamon rolls and sticky buns. There are also many fillings that can be mixed and matched across the applications. For example, I just made a Cinnamon Walnut Coffee Cake using the formulas from this book. You may say, "Wait! That's not in the index!" but it is because I used the cinnamon filling for the cinnamon rolls, added rather a lot of walnuts and rolled it into a coffee cake ring.

Many of the companion recipes are for fillings that may make enough for multiple recipes of the related breads. Fixing this is simple if you do a little baker's math using the percentages that are helpfully provided with each recipe.

The recipes for lean doughs also work very well. I've had great results with the Ciabatta and with the Baguette (with all three versions - I like the pate fermentee version best.)

You really can make the breads in this book and have fun doing it.

Book is great Seller stinks!
I ordered this book over a month ago and had yet to receive it from them seller and i never got a response when i asked for a refund.
So i will never be buying anything from this seller again. ... Read more

Product Description
When Charlie van Over makes his bread, he breaks all the rules of classic bread baking.He doesn't proof the yeast.He uses cold water instead of warm.He mixes the dough in a food processor for forty-five seconds instead of kneading it by hand.He lets the dough rise in a cool place.The results?Perfect crusty-on-the-outside baguettes with texture, taste, and aroma.Light brioche with buttery crisp crusts and fluffy, saffron interiors.Chewy bagels with hardy, smooth crusts.A rich walnut loaf studded with nuts and scented with the full flavor of whole wheat.A homey cherry babka with a crunchy cinnamon sugar topping.How is this possible?

Like many inventors, Charlie came across his technique by accident.At a party for Carl Sontheimer, founder of Cuisinart, the company that first introduced the food processor to American home cooks, it was suggested to Charlie that he mix his dough in a food processor.Thus began several years of experimentation and, finally, a foolproof method for making perfect bread every time.

Now you can re-create Charlie van Over's great bread for yourself.And what's even more amazing is that Charlie's is a hands-off, rather than a hands-on, method.Once the dough is mixed in the food processor, there's no kneading.Just place it in a bowl at room temperature to allow the flavors to develop.Have to run out suddenly for a few hours?No problem.Just put the dough in the refrigerator until you're ready.You won't have to keep baker's hours or become a professional to make wonderful bread at home.

Once you've mastered the basic technique, the possibilities are endless.Fougasse, Ciabatta, Semolina Bread, pizza, Danish Twists, and even sourdough Olive Rosemary Bread and Idaho Potato Rolls.Have a favorite bread?Charlie even explains how to convert any recipe to The Best Bread Ever method.
The Best Bread Ever provides easy-to-follow instructions for more than sixty breads, step-by-step photographs, helpful advice for troubleshooting your food processor, rich color photographs of Charlie's bread, and recipes for using bread in bread puddings, soups, and other dishes.As Jacques Pépin says in his foreword, "Get your ingredients and equipment together and follow Charlie's remarkable method.You will never be without good bread again."Amazon.com Review
According to Charles Van Over, a food processor, an instant-readthermometer, and a baking stone are the only equipment essential to making thebest bread you will ever eat. You also have to be willing to make a leap offaith, following his precise method meticulously: the bread dough must be made in a food processor that is run for exactly 45 seconds,and you have to use flour and water that produce dough with a temperature of 75-80°Fahrenheit. Check the book for the other six rules of Van Over's system and see if youagree that the results are stunningly good.

To assure clarity, the recipes provide U.S. measures by volume and weightas well as by metric measures. This versatility makes the book transportable around theglobe, though its recipes are designed to work with American flour and otheringredients. The type is large and easy-to-read, which is most helpful whenfollowing the many steps involved in making bread. Color photos provide inspiration,whileprogressive shots in black and white demonstrate important steps in some ofthe recipes. You'll find directions for making bagels, sourdough, and breadsenriched with milk, butter, or eggs, including Alsatian Kugelhopf and CheddarPepper Brioche with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, as well as Van Over's baguette,Semolina Bread, and a Presentation Loaf that is specially inscribed ordecorated. If you have ever made bread with poor results, The Best Bread Ever will help you break through tothe results you dream of. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (37)

Breadmaking really easy.
Just buy an instant-read thermomter and to make it even easier buy a scale.But my Big problem with this book, not the authors's fault, is that I bake using only whole grains.However the technique can be adapted to anything, you just won't have the same fancy products in the whole grain bread.

Bittman likes it
Described by Mark Bittman, foodie of The New York Times, as the authoritative book on food-processor dough making.

Fantastic! The best book for beginning bakers!
This is a fantastic book for the beginning baker.I'd been interested in baking bread for years, and I had read some of the most popular bread-baking books, but was too intimated to try my own hand.That all changed when I read "The Best Bread Ever." Van Over does an excellent job of walking the novice through the process of baking bread, and the results are superb!I now have a reputation in the family for making delicious bread.

This method requires a few kitchen essentials -- food processor, digital scale, and digital thermometer. I purchased a scale and thermometer just for these recipes, but use them all the time in the kitchen.The recipes are very precise, in terms of rise/retard times, measurements, and temperatures, and I found this helps me be consistent in my baking.

The no knead bread process is very popular right now, but I found that the bread I baked with Van Over's book to have a much more complex flavor and better crumb.I highly recommend this book.

Incredible!Dare I say life-changing?
I'm not a frequent reviewer, but this book is so amazing I can't help myself.I bought it on recommendation of a friend and then realized my 4-cup food processor was too small, so it sat on my shelf for half a year or so.Then my friend had me over and we did a few recipes together and I was totally sold!I went out that very day and bought the biggest Cuisinart there is and haven't looked back.The pizza dough recipe means we haven't bought pizza in a very long time.The 'best bread ever' recipe means I've stopped buying bakery french loaves and baguettes (because now mine are better!).All this was great, but last night I tried the challah and WOW!I spent less than 5 minutes doing ALL the prep and mixing.It proofed, I made the loaves (again, a few minutes max) and the result was stunning and absolutely delicious.The book is very technical and at first that was off-putting since it sounded complicated.But once you've tried a few times and learned the technique it's about 500 times simpler than normal bread making.I can't say enough good things about this book.It now lives on my cookbook stand on my counter since I use it to make bread or pizza crust at least every other day.Perhaps the best part is that it really takes an incredibly short time to get this proofing.Since the bread mixes for only 45 seconds you basically just have to get all the ingredients out and you're ready to be done baking for the day.5-10 minutes total work for you and you've got fresh bread--hey it takes longer than that to get to a bakery to buy it!A large food processor may seem like a big investment, but I bet I've already broken even on money I would have spent on fresh bread and pizza.Buy this, you'll never look back!

Ready to Purchase
I am a new owner of a KitchenAid 12-cup food processor, and have only baked bread from scratch twice in my 46 years.But, wondering if an old dog could learn a new trick, I went searching on the web for bread recipes I could make in a FP.I found the author's recipe for bagels on Recipelink, and decided to give it a try.

Because I know nearly nothing about baking, I was a little nervous, certain I would burn out the motor on my new food processor.But as I worked my way through the recipe, I gained more and more confidence.With my handy instant read thermometer and the author's detailed instructions, I actually felt in control at times - something that happens rarely for me in the kitchen :-)

Well, I'm happy to report that I just ate my first bagel.Although not perfect, it is definitely edible - even good - and it almost looks like I knew what I was doing.Based on this experience, I am purchasing a copy of this book and look forward to learning more about the author's technique.I'm rating it 4 now based on my experience, and will return after receiving the book to adjust my rating if needed. ... Read more

Product Description

A practical guide to bread-machine cookery provides solutions to every possible baking pitfall, as well as twenty-five fail-proof recipes and tips on reducing fat, salt, and sugar. 100,000 first printing.

Customer Reviews (14)

a very helpful book!!
I have had this book for several years - it is a great book for the bread machine user. It is one of the two I recommend to people.of course the other is bread machine magic by these authors. Overall a great book.

Bread Machine Book
The book arrived in perfect condition and within just a couple of days of ordering.

book purchase review
This book was received in a very short time and in excellent condition - could not have asked for quicker service or better product.

Must have bread machine book
Awesome book!Gave me lots of great information.I am new to bread making and I just got a bread machine to make it easier!Wow!This book really helped me out and paid itself off in just 5 minutes - because I was measuring the flour wrong.My new bread machine didn't tell me how to measure the flour correctly.Thank you Magic Book!

A must have reference book
I haven't experimented with their recipes yet, but I refer to this book everytime I make bread. In order to make bread, I believe you have to understand the ingredients: their purpose, how they interact with eachother, how the environment can effect them. This book really gives you a good introduction to bread making. The "operating knowledge" it provides will make a failed bread less discouraging bec. after reading the book, you will be able to say, "maybe that was bec. I added too much salt..." There are a lot of helpful "troubleshooting" section. If you just follow a recipe and it does not work out without knowing the basics, you would be at a loss as to what went wrong and you might give up.

The book will explain the different types of flours available for example and how you might have to adjust your ingredients to make an optimal bread for example. Provides great ideas like that you can use applesauce instead of oil. The book gave me so much confidence that I usuallyplay with the recepie and make them bit more my own.

For a beginner, I believe this is a must have book. It is easy to read, actaully quite pleasant! ... Read more

Product Description
8 in X 11 in, 95 pages ... Read more

Product Description
The second book in the Bread Machine Cookbook series features 130 original recipes. It includes special sections on international breads, coffee breads, pizzas and hand-pies that offer new ideas for using the appliance. Current instructions and common questions and answers make this book a must for the bread machine user. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

My favorite bread maker recipe book
This is my second copy of this book because I wore out the first one.Over the years, I've tried many of these recipes and have been very pleased.I have used them with or witboutmy bread machine, so they are very adaptable.

The best in the series!!
This book has a whole section on calzones, pizzas, and hand tossed breads which is my favorite!Everything I have made turns out WONDERFULLY!!

This is an AWESOME cookbook, I love the way the recipes are listed in the book, very easy to follow.The ingredients are listed in order to how they should be placed in the machine, there are instructions for 1, 1/2, and 2 lb loaves.The print is large which also makes the recipes easy to follow.I own her whole series of BM cookbooks because I like them so much!!Great variety also--if I have a certain ingredient that I want to use up in my cupboard, 9 times out of 10 I can find a recipe for bread that I can use it in!!Can't say enough good things about this cookbook!!

I didn't want to give it back!
A friend lent me this book three months ago and I kept making excuses for not returning it.In the end, she came for lunch, and feeling guilty I thought I would just write out my favourite recipes, and ones I wanted totry ... an hour later and I was still writing!She came for lunch (Iserved Corny Bread, my favourite so far) and during dessert I was STILLwriting.She felt so bad, she told me to keep it longer.She alsosuggested I tried Amazon, and here I am and have ordered all the books inthe series, plus copies for some of my friends.This is the best BreadMachine Cookbook. It is simple, with no uneccesary information.The joy ofBread Machines is that once you have done a couple of recipes from yourInstruction book you can cook anything and don't need to be told the sameinformation over and over again.I love every recipe I have tried so farfrom this book.Everyone with a bread machine should have one!

Easy and delicious!
I checked this book out of my public library and cried when it needed to be returned!I absolutely loved it.I tried many of the recipes and found all to be wonderful.The 4 star rating is due to the directions not alwaysbeing super clear.The book tends to deal on the level of one having hadexperience with a bread machine.Highy recommended!

A must have book that is easy to follow and indispensible.
This book has a great section on sourdough breads that I have used again and again.The author provides an accurate description of each bread with suggestions of menu accompaniments.I would consider this author an expert on bread machine breads!And so easy to follow. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
If you bake, but making bread intimidates you, Beth Hensperger's Bread Made Easy is the perfect choice for expanding your skills. It gives all the basics a beginner needs about technique, equipment, and ingredients, inthe clearest, most reassuring way.

Hensperger certainly knows about baking bread--this is her eighth book onthe subject. This time, she starts with "Baking School," a comprehensivesection covering what pans to use, why bottled water is best, and how touse various kinds of yeast. She describes 12 types of wheat flour as wellas flour made from 8 other grains. Then Hensperger explains propertechniques forkneading, rising, and forming loaves, including more than 65 color photos. Theeight master recipes start beginners off making a simple unkneaded BatterBread, then go on to progressively more demanding white bread, egg doughs,whole wheat bread, flatbread, rustic country loaves, and yeasted coffeecakes. Each recipe is broken into five key steps, including cooling andstorage. To encourage you, Hensperger gives variations on each masterrecipe, suggesting you make them all before moving on to the next type ofbread. Progressing from challah to a cinnamon-sugar-filled egg-dough spiralloaf, hamburger buns, elegantly twisted dinner rolls, and a flat,foccacia-like Stuffed Onion Pretzel topped with poppy seeds makes this a rewardingexercise. Anyone who bakes will appreciate the clear, easy-to-use format ofthis book, and find it a reasonably complete and compact reference work as wellas a source for seemingly foolproof recipes. --Dana Jacobi ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Not sure how to start...
I've only tried to bake bread a few times without a bread machine and only one was edible.So I thought I'd try this book, reading carefully about yeasts and flours and techniques in the first 41 pages.I really try to follow recipes exactly to the letter in fear of screwing up.So the author recommends starting with the first recipe and working your way through the book, but I'm already stuck on the very first "white velvet batter bread" because I cannot find the bakeware required for this recipe.There are two options: glass baking canisters or coffee cans.I cannot find the glass canisters that she uses, not even on Amazon, where I can usually find everything!
Also, have you tried finding 13-oz coffee cans?I don't even usually buy coffee in cans (I buy beans in bags) so when I went to purchase some, I found that most of the "cans" are plastic, and the metal ones come in 10oz and 12.5oz and everything in between, but not 13oz.Ugh.Not sure if Amazon sells coffee or adequately describes the packaging, but that's the next place I'll look.
If I can find them, I'll buy two cans and brew coffee for a couple of weeks until I empty both of them so that I can then try to bake the bread.So the first recipe is getting a bit arduous and I haven't even measured out the yeast yet!

>>>Update: After some in-store research, I've determined that all those cans of coffee are the same size, just adjusted for weight, but be sure it's the type of can that you open with a can opener, not with the pull-off sealed lid!I've now successfully made the first two breads in the book and they were wonderful and pretty easy by strictly following the directions.I feel ready to start moving on and adding whole grains and really getting towards healthier bread products.Three comments that would improve the book: (1) give measurements throughout the recipe, for example, you use 1 1/2 cups of flour at the beginning, then on the next page it says to "add the rest of the flour 1/3 cup at a time" which means you have to go back and look at the ingredient list a page back and do the math in your head and figure out how many 1/3 cup scoops that is (19 scoops plus a bit, don't lose count!), or better yet (2) teach us how to properly measure flour (which I fortunately happened to know already) so that we can pre-measure out the entire amount and do less math.Also (3) talk about humidity, because I had to add extra flour to achieve the correct dough texture, supposedly from my baking friends because of the high, high humidity here in Florida.

**** I'd give it four stars if I reviewed it today.

Great book to start off with
This book is very simple and has great illustrations.I have been making hand kneaded bread for a few years now and have had good luck with the recipes I made from this book.

Inexpensive and not even worth the low price
I've made a lot of good bread lately even though I'm a beginner.But the 4 recipes I've tried from this book have all failedIf this had been the only book I'd purchased on making bread I'd have stopped trying by now.But every recipe of Beatrice Ojakangas has turned out to be wonderful bread. I'd recommend her books if you want good bread.Should add, I don't know Beatrice and have no agenda in recommending her books.Each recipe from "Bread Made Easy" has ended up in my compost heap.Very disappointed

Great source of recipes
The author says it's as good as a class in breadmaking-except for an instructor to talk to she's right!The recipes are easy to follow and arranged in order of difficulty.Plus each chapter starts with a basic recipe and then adds variations to dress it up!Try the Egg bread with cinnamon-my kids love it.

Excellent instructional book!
This book exceeded my expectations.It explains everything you need to know to bake all types of bread, including ingredients, supplies, techniques and tips.The author is very knowledgable and takes you through the book from basic to more advanced breads.I HIGHLY recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn the art of baking breads!!! ... Read more

Product Description
Since 1973, Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletins have offered practical, hands-on instructions designed to help readers master dozens of country living skills quickly and easily. There are now more than 170 titles in this series, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

I expected more.
It is just not much of a book. It has two variations of the same bread repeated twenty times. Check your old "Betty Crocker Cook Book".

Beyond banana bread
If you have ever made banana bread, you can bake the recipes in this book.For the novice, Karoff gives advice for getting it right.She also offers the more adventurous a basic recipe with guidelines for successful experimentation.Most of these recipes also make excellent muffins (and other shapes) with cooking time adjustments.

Quick breads rise using baking powder or soda (meaning no kneading and rising) and they offer some of the easiest baking out there.They need not be relegated to breakfast or dessert, either.There is a section on savory quick breads that would be appropriate alongside soups or entrees.Take a quick bread to your next gathering and you may well receive more credit than is due!

If you've never had a Storey cooking bulletin, you will find them brief, but focused and well-done. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Completely satisfied
I received my book in excellent condition and earlier than expected.I will definitely order from Awesome books again ... Read more

Product Description
Wake up to the aroma of fresh bread wafting through your kitchen every morning! A dream? No. With your bread machine, it's a reality. Push a button or two and transform what seems like a laborious, time-consuming and skilled process into a spectacularly easy affair. So why do you need this book when bread machines come with their own recipes? Well, such recipes vary, sometimes on the high side, in the amount of yeast, salt, sugar, fat and dried milk powder they contain. Annette Yates has set about reducing these ingredients and providing recipes for making loaves that are as natural as they can be. And they are delicious too. Or you can add extra ingredients - like herbs, spices, seeds, nuts, fruit, vegetables, honey, mustard and even chocolate! - and transform simple bread into something really special. Try it and see... ... Read more

Product Description
Nothing satisfies or delights the appetite quite like bread, from rustic sourdough sandwiches and crostini piled high with Roma tomatoes to Sunday morning French toast and savory Thanksgiving stuffing. No one knows better than Panera Bread that well-made bread is the centerpiece to a great meal. Now America’s favorite bakery-cafe offers a practical guide to baking artisan breads at home, along with more than 120 recipes for tantalizing dishes that begin with handcrafted bread—whether you’re baking your own or starting with a warm, crusty loaf fresh from your local bakery.

Panera’s expert bakers guide you through the six easy steps to successful bread-making at home, outlining the ingredients, tools, and techniques that guarantee a perfect loaf. Learn how to work with fresh yeast, adjust recipes according to the baker’s percentage, and craft more than a dozen varieties of white, wheat, and rye breads.

Too often, great bread is relegated to the sidelines during a meal, so the Panera Bread team also serves up creative ways to cook with artisan breads in appetizers, breakfast and brunch fare, sandwiches, soups, salads, sides, and even desserts. Innovative sandwiches such as Fuji Apple and Fontina Panini and new twists on family favorites like Bananas Foster French Toast showcase the bold flavors and remarkable textures of breads like Kalamata Olive, Raisin Pecan, Three-Cheese, and Focaccia. Panera Bread also shares, for the first time ever, a handful of recipes from their award-winning bakery-cafe menu.

A thorough introduction to bread-making for beginners and an indispensable reference for experienced bakers, The Panera Bread Cookbook is a celebration of this eternal comfort food—a must-own for bread lovers and bakers everywhere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Panera Recipes
The book has a lot of easy to prepare, delicious recipes.I was a little disappoined they did not include the soups I love.

Considering buying another
I purchased this item as a gift, so I haven't made extensive use of it personally, but I thumbed through the pages a bit before wrapping..all around, it seemed to be a solid cookbook and exactly what I thought it would be - a cookbook to help you recreate delicious Panera dishes at home!I'm now considering purchasing one for myself as well!

Disappointing
As with most cookbooks, I checked this one out from the libarary before buying it.Am I ever glad that I did!Hoping to recreate the onion soup, along with other menu items, at home, I dove into the book.There were no Panera Bread recipes from the menu that I recognized.Save your money and buy another cookbook with real recipes!

Includes delicious meals, but don't expect to find recipes for many restaurant favorites
As other reviewers have mentioned the bulk of the recipes in this cookbook are NOT recipes to make items off the Panera Bread menu.If you buy the book with this end goal in mind you will probably be disapointed as there are not many and they are likely the recipes you could have figured out on your own.

That said, there are still a lot of very good recipes in this cookbook that make use of bread or are designed to compliment bread.I have tried several recipes including the Salad of Ciabatta, Celeriac, Grapes, Walnuts, and Apple that is a really fun and unique take on a bread salad.The recipe for the Turkey Bacon Bravo sandwich is also very good and tastes just like the sandwich on the menu.However, even with strong recipes like these it doesn't come close to my favorite cookbooks for sandwiches, salads, and baked breads.Instead I would highly recommend books like Raising the Salad Bar: Beyond Leafy Greens--Inventive Salads with Beans, Whole Grains, Pasta, Chicken, and More, which offers some really unqiue and easy to make salad ideas.

Overall I highly recommend browsing this book at the library or a bookstore before purchasing it.It does contain a lot of delicious recipes, but not very many copycat recipes for the items on its own menu.

don't expect the real asian chicken salad dressing recipe here.
What a ripoff! I bought this book solely for the intent of re-creating
the asian sesame chicken salad.This recipe in this book IS NOT, the same as in the restaurant.

You have been warned. ... Read more

Product Description

Winner of the James Beard Cookbook of the Year Award

Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread & Scuppernong Wine is a scrumptious slice of Smoky Mountain and Blue Ridge Hill country foodlore handed down from Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Germany, and the Cherokee Nation. In addition to generous helpings of folklore, the text highlights and embraces the art of Appalachian cuisine from pioneer days to the present, providing insights that will fascinate readers everywhere.

Divided into four sections--the folklore, the art, the food, the blessings--the book is packed with authoritative folklore and authentic Appalachian recipes, as well as old-timey photographs: fireplace and wood-stove cooking, hog killing, bear hunting, shuck-bean stringing, apple-butter partying, dinner on the groups, and much more.

The Folklore includes chapters on the people, seasons, and social life as it pertains to the food. The Art includes chapters on growing, gardening, farming by the signs, food preparation, and food preservation. The more than 200 recipes are accompanied with stories of how the foods have been passed from generation to generation. And the Blessings include numerous hill country invocations.

All in all, the book contains sixty-one fascinating chapters and almost one hundred sidebars on special topics. Among the twenty-three chapters of recipes are subjects such as: Corn Bread, Mountain Staff of Life; From Catheads to Angel Biscuits; Moonshine: Mountain Water of Life; Hog-Killing Day: Mountain Celebration; Smokehouse Ham and Red-Eye Gravy. The result of years of research and interviews, Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread & Scuppernong Wine will remind readers of the Foxfire series of an earlier generation.

Customer Reviews (5)

Great way to get in touch with your roots!
I am a proud daughter of south of the Mason-Dixon line. I have loved reading this book to get in touch with both my heritage, and the history of my area. The book begins with an interesting and detailed overview of the history of the rural southeast (Appalachian mountain area), and segues into information about the cultural roots of the cooking and lifestyle in this region. The book is by turns nostalgic and harshly honest about the sometimes-brutal, sometimes-beautiful lifestyle of days gone by in the most rural areas of our country. The recipes are excellent, though perhaps less heart-healthy than this day and age allows for. I recommend this book to anyone with a soft spot in their hearts for homestyle southern cooking, or who has a hankering to go back to the mountains.

Looking forward to it
I just put this book in my cart to purchase. The index list really brings back some memories of my uncle cooking squirrel & rabbit. My brother in law and brother still hunt mostly deer and my mother has a scuppernong vine in her backyard even today & we all live in Florida. I've had occasion to receive some of these foodstuffs as gifts and although I've prepared many things, was at a loss with these. I'm looking forward to this book to, if nothing more, enjoy the reading.

Joe Dabney's Other Ode to Appalachian Culture
Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, and Scuppernong Wine is my favorite kind of a writing: Perhaps it's just an attention span that only slightly exceeds a chicken's, but I've always been partial to encyclopedias, chrestomathies, and motley books. The prime example in English might be Robert Burton's The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy (Dover Books on Literature & Drama), in a peripatetic group that includes everything from William Blake's epic poems to Ambrose Bierce's subversive dictionary to James Agee's queer account of Alabama sharecroppers. Like the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament, each seems to offer a continuously unique, surprising, and delightful encounter, and the reading as a whole is as various and inexhaustible as experience himself.

So it was with great satisfaction I opened, at random, Joseph Dabney's "cookbook" to find instructions for bear stew combined with an anecdote about a North Carolina woman breastfeeding a cub. Smokehouse Ham is hardly a manual for cooking but a living compilation of history, biography, opinion, and folklore, which animate each chapter's recipes. Personally, I can hear my own grandfather talking about hunting squirrels and rabbits in the North Georgia foothills to supply the family's table during the Depression, and in this way the volume invites a kind of mutual action, begging for me to pull out a pencil and write in the margins as the page inscribes me.

I should add a recommendation that will touch all similar bibliophiles. Characteristically, the book has a reassuring heft. My favorite books have all been physically substantial. They're like intimate companions. Often when I've fallen asleep reading late, I've woken the next morning to find the rectangular impression in the sheets beside me wholly comforting.

An authentic treasury of American culinary history
Now in its tenth-anniversary edition, Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine is more than a cookbook - it's an all-out celebration of the mouth-watering delights of Appalachian cuisine, which draws upon food traditions from Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, Germany, and the Cherokee Nation. In addition to a wealth of recipes ranging from Buttermilk Corn Bread to Newland Fried Liver Mush, Pickled Peaches, or Collowhee Green Beans, there are countless tips, tricks, and techniques to coaxing the best flavors out of traditional recipes, as well as historical anecdotes. A few of the recipes cover cooking more unusual dishes, made from such edible creatures as squirrels or opossum! Illustrated with a handful of black-and-white photographs and peppered with useful and fascinating tidbits of information, Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine is an authentic treasury of American culinary history.

History and food make a great mix
Reviewed by Irene Watson for Reader Views (9/08)

What a delightful book!I'm not calling it a cookbook because it's not "just a cookbook."It has a bit of memoir, history, folklore and tradition.The photos of previous generations add to the uniqueness of this book.The Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridge country of the Carolinas is the setting of the stories and recipes which range from passed down from the pioneers to the present cuisine.

At first when I skimmed the book to see what all was in store for me I remembered my first encounter with smokehouse ham in a small town in North Carolina.I had no idea the laborious venture it is and came to appreciate the art itself.Dabney gives history as well as information on how it is prepared.

I tried "Lettice's Sweet Potato Puffs" because of the simplicity.The cinnamon and nutmeg gave it a warm effect and the puffs were delicious.

The "Appalachian Hominy Casserole" was good, with just the right amount of garlic as to not overpower the taste of hominy.I've used hominy before but never by running it through a food chopper as this recipe suggests. The texture was different than I expected and I felt there was too much tomato for the amount of vegetables.However, that said, the flavor was wonderful and served with a simple salad, we enjoyed it.

"Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine" by Joseph E. Dabney is a superb book for those interested in the historical aspects of the South, as well as the taste of down-home cooking.There are no frills or presentation concerns with any of the recipes.I've often heard of people "reading" a cookbook.Well, this is certainly one to read.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Sourdough in a Bread Machine
This is a great book! It has explanations and instructions on several ways to make sourdough bread: Using the BM totally; using the dough cycle only of the BM; and using the BM with yeast and sourdough starter. So you can make it "your way". Worth every penny.

Best of both worlds
Most sourdough cookbooks fall into one of two camps:The hedgers, who add baking powder or commercial yeast to all their recipes, presumably just in case their starter doesn't perform as desired; and the purists, who never add extra leavening to anything.This book straddles the line nicely, providing both kinds of recipes sorted into sections to suit your mood and the amount of time you have available for baking.There is a great chapter explaining how sourdough works and why you need so much time to bake using it, and another devoted to the ins and outs of adapting sourdough for bread machine use.There is a section of recipes using commercial yeast and the regular bread machine cycle, a section using wild yeast and the bread machine cycle, and a section of wild yeast recipes using only the dough cycle.
The authors tell you approximately how many hours each step will take, which is very helpful when planning your baking, but I will confess to being somewhat turned off by the fact that they describe their starters in terms that seem to be specific to Ed Wood's dried starters for sale ('fast', 'slow', 'Russian', 'Austrian', etc.)
Aside from the odd spelt and kamut bread recipes, there are a lot of rye recipes in this book, pitas and rolls, a selection of bread flavors from around the world, and the very best plain sourdough French bread I have ever made.This book is a great addition to any sourdough baker's collection.

TASTY BAKING
I have used this cookbook for years, and decided to order one for my daughter, since it is one of the best sourdough cookbooks around.The recipes are well organized, and the results are stunning!For anyone whodoes sourdough baking, the varieties are quite intriguing, and theoccasional odd ingredients are not usually difficult to find, or substitutefor.It's been around a while, but since Amazon.com has it, I'm delightedto buy it for gifts. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a long-awaited, huge revision of the first, best, and by far the best-selling cookbook—with more than a million copies sold!—for automatic bread machines. The Bread Machine Cookbook contains more recipes, for more loaf sizes, tested on more machines! It also contains loads of updated information on newer bread machine models, allergy-sensitive baking, and new answers for frequently asked questions about homemade bread. If you only want one bread machine cookbook, this is it! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (63)

The bread machine cookbook
This book has everything. I love it. The recipes are easy to use and they list the different loaf sizes. I would recommend this book for everyone especially beginners. Love this cookbook. I hope I will have it forever

Only book you need
I've used this book and only this book since 1995. Never had any failures and never opened another book, because this one is all I need. I've sent my Dauther In Law some ideas from it and told her to get a copy.

a booklet that fits into your pockets
This tiny booklet is promised to be a huge update to a previous version. However, it is so short (150 pages) and small (fits in your pocket), written in a large font. This appears to be a book for a fifth grader or so. And, the whole book still reads like it would be at least 10 years behind all other bread books. The information is indeed quite un-authorative, as another reviewer pointed correctly out. The recipes that I tried did not do well in my Zoshiruji bread machine at all. Plus, they did not taste either. What I find worse is the imprecise recipes. There is no way that I could bake a bread from these recipes without having to change them. Each recipe leaves you guessing behind what amount and which order one should add the suggested ingredients. The book gives recipes for small, medium and large bread. However most often the different ingredients don't scale proportionally and even within a category the amounts vary by 50%. I have not figured out why that is.
There are zero pictures in this booklet and not much useful text. Therefore, I find this for almost nine dollars expensive compared to what you can get for the money. The books self-description is a big PR joke and many of the exaggerated reviews are completely unexplainable. The writing style is as weak as the content of this book. On page one you'll find sentences like "When the first Bread Machine Cookbook was published in 1991, there were no other books on the market, ..." (I guess, that's why it was the first book!).
You might find a better text then this for your money. For example "The Bread and Bread Machine Bible: 250 Recipes for Breads From Around the World" by Christine Ingram and Jennie Shapter is a real nice book that inspires good bread baking. Over 500 pages of thorough descriptions, lovely introductions and fantastic photography to practically every bread described.

Great Bread Machine Cookbook!
We received this book about two weeks after we started using our new bread machine. The two loaves I baked with recipes that came with the machine were only OK - so I was a bit worried our machine would soon find a place in the hall closet, never to be used again. But the recipes in the book are wonderful. We have made a total of 20 or so loaves using 6 or 7 different recipes. And there has not been a disappointment among them! The only reason we haven't tried more recipes is that we keep wanting the tasty breads we've already tried. Our three favorites: whole wheat, cottage cheese with dill, and ricotta. My one concern when I first read the intro was the caution that many recipes, such as those with "wet" dairy products (cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, etc.) or wet fruit, should be baked without the timer (so that the cycle could be tuned to the variation in rising time); although I have not prepared many of these recipes, we have used the timer on 3 recipes that have needed wet dairy products and been fine every time. Our machine is a Zojirushi BBCC-X20; but I'm sure the recipes work well for all machine types.

Great Basic Book for Bread Machine Baker.
I bought this book for a friend with a newbread machine.I have enjoyed all the books for the bread machine by Donna R. Gorman.The books all contain. a explanaion of bread machines, ingredients and corrections for common problems.I am on my second copy of the book, I wore out the first one.There measurement for both one-pound and one and a half pound loaves for every recipe.This a great pick if you only have one book for your machine. ... Read more