The Big Book of Bread
I love bread in a somewhat unreasonable manner. It is one of the few foods I could never give up. And it’s also one of the few things I rarely make - which is ridiculous given the state of most commercial bread in Britain.
A copy of Anne Sheasby’s The Big Book of Bread
The book is very simply laid out - a spiral binding allows it to sit flat, each recipe is numbered and there are more words than pictures. But if you do need visual inspiration, the illustrations are glossy, tempting photographs: you can almost smell the brioche and taste the bagels.
Sheasby starts with a coverage of bread history and basics, such as yeast and flour. She also covers technique and offers some advice on how to adapt the ‘by hand’ recipes for a breadmaker. Many of the recipes come with their own specific breadmaker adjustments, so machine based bakers will still come away with more than the 100 recipes at their disposal.
For me, the whole point of making bread is the way the dough feels under your hands as you knead it. I couldn’t imagine making bread but divorcing myself from the physical, sensory process. Kneading the dough, feeling it become elastic and smooth, anxiously waiting for it to rise, the lovely smell of fresh yeast - without all of these breadmaking would, for me, be pointless.
So it’s no surprise that for my recipe test, I started with recipe number 2: basic wholemeal bread. I halved the quantities (even I have a limit at the amount of fresh bread I can eat!) and, in the space of a relaxing Sunday afternoon (a bit of shopping, decorating the Christmas tree), I had a small loaf and four wholemeal rolls.
It turns out I can eat bread a lot faster than I expected and by Wednesday morning I had to resort to some store-bought bread lurking in the freezer. That was disappointing. My bread had guts, body and flavour and every time I opened the bag in which it was stored I caught of waft of yeasty, bready goodness.
I’m now very keen to make my way through the remainder of the book (and invest in some larger bowls so I can make more bread in one hit). Sheasby does not just cover ‘bread’ - a random selection of recipes includes ciabatta, cherry and hazelnut twists, Moroccan flat breads and bacon and Stilton pull apart. There’s a section of gluten free breads and bread dishes, such as French onion soup.
This book would make the perfect Christmas present for the bread lover, the enthusiastic baker or the owner of a bread machine. In short - pretty much everyone!
The Big Book of Bread retails at £12.99/$19.95 and is available from Amazon UK
