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4.5
Just when you think you have seen the best possible book on bread, a new volume comes out, generally written by Peter Reinhart, which tops the previous book. This is certainly the case with the author?s ?Crust and Crumb? being trumped by his latest bread volume, ?The Bread Baker?s Apprentice?. Both volumes have won James Beard awards up the wazoo, and both books deserve all the praise they get for how well they address the relatively difficult and arcane corner of gastronomica that is artisinal bread baking.Before you form any impressions that this praise means you simply must get this book, be warned that you will be perfectly capable of making superior bread at home without cracking any one of Reinhart?s books. There are several more accessible sources. My favorite, recommended by Reinhart himself is the bread baking chapters of ?Baking with Julia (Child)? co-authored by baking writer Dorie Greenspan. Another even broader and older source is Bernard Clayton?s ?Complete Book of Breads? which covers over six hundred pages without once using the words ?poolish?, ?biga?, or ?sponge?.Reinhart?s books are for professionals (especially ?Crust and Crumb?) and very serious bread baking enthusiasts and hobbyists (especially ?The Bread Baker?s Apprentice?). If you go back to Reinhart?s very first book ?Brother Juniper?s Bread Book?, you may even say these books are for those people who treat bread as part of their religion. Being true to the derivation of the word ?religion?, it is for people who truly wish to be connected to bread making.?The Bread Baker?s Apprentice? is no less serious and no less rigorous than Reinhart?s earlier books, but it is clearly more accessible to the lay reader than ?Crust and Crumb?. Aside from having one of the most attractive covers I have seen on a culinary work in a long time, it is glossier and more invitingly designed by Ten Speed Press, the publishers of both volumes. ?Apprentice? opens with a story of the author?s winning a James Beard Bread Baking competition and how that lead him to a trip to Paris and a tour of several of the French Capital?s leading boulangerie. His experiences with the French apprentice system, especially as used by some of the city?s leading bread bakers is the source of the book?s title, as well as being the source of the great pound sign marked boule being held by the very attractive Reinhart apprentice on the cover of the book.?Apprentice? also devotes close to eighty pages to explaining in great detail the steps of artisinal bread baking. Reinhart?s books, especially this one, are some of the very few I have seen which explain many of the things which go on while making bread. Everyone who uses yeast knows these microorganisms eat sugar or starch and exhale carbon dioxide. What people do not commonly know is that they also exhale ethanol and, in artisinal breads, wild microorganisms that create lactic and acetic acids that give sourdoughs their distinctive flavoring enhance their action. The book also explains that the first rise in bread baking has much more to do with flavor development than it does with creating the airy texture in the bread?s crumb. The only other book which does as good a job of explaining bread baking technique is Joe Ortiz? ?The Village Baker?.?Apprentice? also has as good or better illustrations of baking techniques than both ?Crust and Crumb? or ?The Village Baker?.?Apprentice? presents several of the same ?formulas? that appear in ?Crust and Crumb? but in every case, where the same bread is presented, ?Apprentice? goes into greater depth regarding the history of the bread, the special techniques needed, and the variations commonly done with the same basic formula. Both books use the Bakers Percentage Formula presentation of ingredient amounts, but both also present ingredient amounts in very easily measured ounces. I am surprised that neither book includes metric weights, as they are immeasurably easier to scale up or down, especially when you are dealing with such small amounts as in fractions of an ounce of salt or yeast. One complaint I have seen of Reinhart?s books is in the large size of some of the recipes (meaning an implementation of a formula). I sympathize with this comment, but point out that Reinhart is not writing for the occasional home baker, he is writing for the professional and the devoted amateur baker.In the author?s treatment of Brioche, both books deal with this bread as the archetype of a whole family of breads; however ?Apprentice? goes into this family tree to a greater depth than I have seen in any other book. It gives formulas for ?Rich Man?s Brioche? with 88 percent butter, ?Middle Class Brioche? with 50 percent butter, and Poor Man?s Brioche with 24 percent butter. While ?Crust? gives formulas for brioche family members Kugelhopf and Challah, ?Apprentice gives formulas for brioche cousins Casatiello and Challah.If I were a consecrated member of the bread baking fraternity, I would want both of these book. Well, I want both anyway, since my philosophy is that a 35-dollar book has paid for itself if it yields up one good ideas, and both books are goldmines of information and ideas about bread baking. If you must choose between the two and you are not a professional, take ?Apprentice?. The cover alone is worth the price of admission. If you are a professional or professional wannabe, take ?Crust?. It has a more extensive bibliography and list of mail, web, and professional sources.In a culinary publishing niche with lots of excellent sources, Reinhart?s books, especially ?The Bread Baker?s Apprentice? is clearly one of the best for the serious baker.
