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4.5
Take any negative reviews on this book "with a grain of salt" - a little bread making pun. People say all kinds of things in the negative reviews that just aren't true. One person said there was no recipes for Pizza Dough. See, now that is someone who either does not want to read or cannot read. This is a fantastic book. I do not believe that bread making - even with a machine - is easy. There are a lot of factors that go into making a good loaf of bread. People who want this to be easy right off the bat will be disappointed. But, if you read the book and follow directions and listen to wisdom - you will be successful. If you want to look at a recipe and dump the ingredients in without thinking and have a successful result - you will never make good bread. All machines are different.I first bought a cheap machine - $79. I followed the recipe booklet that came with it to a T - but not a single loaf I tried in that machine came out right. I decided to buy a Zojirushi Maestro from a business in Vermont that has the word king in the title. It is an excellent machine and I have had great results using it. If you're going to use this bread book for your machine, you have to be mindful of some things. 1. You need to follow your bread machine's order of doing things - and she tells you this over and over. 2. You need to weigh your ingredients on a kitchen scale in grams. While it is true that there are no measurements in grams in this book, you can very likely refer to the recipes that come with your machine to see how many grams are in 2 cups of bread flour, for example. And water and, well, everything. You can also google: "How many grams in 8 ounces of water?" My machine came with a liquid measuring cup and a Tb. and tsp. measure. I always use this cup that came with my machine for the liquid measure. I make sure it is right on the line. Because the success of your bread depends upon a certain ratio of flour to liquid. Weigh and measure very carefully. Also, when you have gathered all of your ingredients, line them up in the order they are supposed to be added according to your machine and then start putting them in the pan.You don't want salt to touch your yeast before starting the machine because it can inactivate your yeast. My machine instructions put the salt on top of the flour, so before I put it on, I make a hole in the top of the flour for the yeast and sprinkle the salt around the hole, making sure none gets inside. Yeast is added last. Being careful with this is especially important if you are using a delay timer, I would think.Unless you are allergic to gluten, I recommend adding it to the recipes. In this book, almost all the recipes have the addition of Vital Wheat Gluten - referred to as "gluten". It helps the bread rise better - even the high protein bread flour. Lots of bakers claim that it doesn't need the gluten but my breads look better and are airier with it. Beth Hensperger is right again!There is something for everyone in this book - unless you are impatient, don't like information and don't want to think or learn. If this is you, don't despair - you can buy bread.I highly recommend using high quality everything - especially the flour. I tried a grocery store brand of organic white flour and it was terrible compared to a high quality brand. Bob's Red Mill has high quality flours although they do not make an organic white bread flour and I'm guessing that the reason is because their all purpose flour is already high in protein. King Arthur Flour also makes high quality flour and they do make a white organic bread flour which is what I'm using.My favorites from this book (I am a beginner and have only tried a few): Orange-Cinnamon Bread; Fresh Dill Bread. Ohmigosh - the Fresh Dill Bread is absolutely mouth-watering. It has a small amount of finely diced onion - just enough to make the bread smell good. There is some cream cheese in the recipe and the dill . . . well, it's just heavenly bread with lots of flavor.Oh - and another negative review that tickled me was a woman who said that the book was too much because she just wanted a few basic bread recipes. Really?! It says "300 Favorite Recipes" right on the front of the book!
