The bread making book that will change your life!

[Cheezy]

Dough: Simple Contempory Bread By Richard Bertinet.
It's £9.99 on amazon and this includes a 30min DVD of Richard showing you his technique.

Richard is a French master baker, now based in Bath. (very engaging)And he shows you how the French make bread, it's completely different to us! No kneeding, you throw and stretch and fold to capture air (this is why you need to see the DVD). On basic bread he only uses yeast (fresh if possible),salt,water, flour. You add much more water into the dough than we are used to, and you fold the dough in certain ways to get a "backbone" structure, this means when you bake it it does't loose its shape.
The resultant bread is always a lot less heavy, very nice, and where my own bread would have to be toasted after the first day post baking cos it goes heavy, this bread stays great for days!.

Really I can't recommend it more. He has a second book out (Crust)which is more advanced. The first book covers white bread, whole meal and rye breads and olive oil breads and pizza's.
Also I'm into his part baking then freezing thing it REALLY works (except for large loaves which I find you have to allow to defrost.)
But baggettes,rolls etc you basically bake for about 3/4 of the time as normal (I take a few out leave a few in), then you allow to go cold,rap in greaseproof paper , this into a plastic bag and freeze. When you want the bread you take out of the freezer place in a COLD oven on the wire shelves, turn the oven to 200'C, when it reaches this (usually 15mins) the bread is ready!.

The format is good, the early recipe's are written out in full, so no see page thingy for basic dough. Later on when you a re a bit more advanced he stops doing it, but thats fine.
I now have my own recipe based on his "pain de campagne" but I use whole meal spelt instead of white , and it's brillient stuff, lasts for days, it's actually better than commercial bread in every way!.

[Millymollymandy]

That doesn't sound like French bread! A baguette stays fresh for only about 4 hours then to give it to the birds the next day you have to jump up and down on it!

[ina]

it's actually better than commercial bread in every way!.

Everything is better than commercial bread... Even no bread is better, rather than factory stuff.

MMM - I think the "real" French artisan bread is a lot better than what you get on average!

It certainly sounds interesting - I'll have to get hold of a copy and see if it works for me. I'm still really taken up by Andrew Whitley's "Bread matters"... That's real bread the British way.

[Milims]

We have the Dough book - it's fantastic and it really does work - oh and gals - when you watch the dvd you will find yourself wishing you were the piece of dough he's working with!

[Annpan]

sounds worth a look

[Chickenlady]

Sounds suddenly more and more interesting...

[wulf]

I concur - an excellent book. You might find it cheaper than £9.99 - I got mine from a publisher's remainder shop. I still use my bread machine when I don't have time to come back and attend to the bread at several stages but it is an easy method if I am home for an evening and I love the way the sticky dough transforms into something completely different with a bit of lifting and folding.

Wulf

[Milims]

Chris really wanted a copy - and hoped I buy him one for christmas. As it happened I found a good condition second hand one on Amazon for £9.99. I thought perfect - it's not new so he'll be able to use it without fear of ruining it with dough. So I bought it for a happy Thursday present. Guess what - he sulked! He liked the book so much he wanted a new copy to keep for very best! Honestly - there's no pleasing some folk! So now I'll be buying another brand new copy - for best! (Chris is such a bibliophile!)

[Millymollymandy]

it's actually better than commercial bread in every way!.

Everything is better than commercial bread... Even no bread is better, rather than factory stuff.

MMM - I think the "real" French artisan bread is a lot better than what you get on average!

It certainly sounds interesting - I'll have to get hold of a copy and see if it works for me. I'm still really taken up by Andrew Whitley's "Bread matters"... That's real bread the British way.

Ina - baguettes are only supposed to stay fresh for half a day which is why bakeries are open for such long hours - every one buys their bread twice a day. Except me because if I bought baguettes I'd have to have false teeth by now!

[Thurston Garden]

Just ordered it from the library for 35p!

[Camile]

Hello,

I agree with MMM ... the baguettes don't stay fresh for long ..

I have that book and I've been baking bread for a couple of months now .. and even his baguette don't stay fresh long ...

but the freezing does wonder, just pop them in a low oven, and they come out as fresh as can be .. and that's the only way I can obtain a nice hard crust like in bakeries in france ...

but what Cheezy is baking is pain de campagne, which does stay fresh for a couple of days, usually bought as a "miche" in France ...

and once you get the hang of it, you can double the quantities and make a larger batch .. I now manage to bake the week supply of bread in 4 hours ...

realy easy that book is ..
Camile

[ina]

I suppose it wasn't baguette I was thinking of... I remember when I was in France, my boss sometimes brought bread (different types) from a really good bakers' in town for a treat. And that was one hell of a difference to the baguette we got locally!

[Millymollymandy]

Round here there are no decent bakeries at all, and the only nice baguette I can buy is from a mini market!

Where I used to live in Ain we had some lovely bakeries and I bought 'rustic' style loaves which didn't have horrible hard crusts which hurt your gums and teeth, and which stayed fresh for several days.

The 'bread' from our bakeries here are concrete on the outside and a bit of rubbery fluff with 80% air bubble inside - and sadly I tried about 10 bakeries before giving up and starting to make my own.

[Cheezy]

Hello,

I agree with MMM ... the baguettes don't stay fresh for long ..

I have that book and I've been baking bread for a couple of months now .. and even his baguette don't stay fresh long ...

but the freezing does wonder, just pop them in a low oven, and they come out as fresh as can be .. and that's the only way I can obtain a nice hard crust like in bakeries in france ...

but what Cheezy is baking is pain de campagne, which does stay fresh for a couple of days, usually bought as a "miche" in France ...

and once you get the hang of it, you can double the quantities and make a larger batch .. I now manage to bake the week supply of bread in 4 hours ...

realy easy that book is ..
Camile

Hi Camile, your right about the frozen bread you do get a "French" crust

Also about the the freshness the Pain de Campagne because its got a rye ferment in it it lasts longer. Also I think because I use wholemeal spelt instead of white flour it also helps, and tastes even better.

What I forgot to mention about his technique incase people haven't got the book is that it really does take about 5 minutes to do rather than the constant kneeding for 10 mins. Also I get a lot more satisfaction slamming the dough down on my worktop. I was repremanded this Saturday from MOH with a "can't you make any more noise!", which of course resulted in even more slamming of dough and a "yes I can!"


And THurston thats the best 35p you ever spent, believe me!.

THe only problem is you get sucke dinto Richards whole technique, so I've been looking for one of his plastic scraper things every where. And I don't seem to get a peel in any of the shops......however a quick look at his website and you can get a plastic thingy for £3.50 and a peel for £25!!!!....hmmmm may be not

[wulf]

Father Christmas kindly provided me with a plastic scraper; I'm not sure if it was intended for culinary purposes (in which case a kitchenware shop might turn up trumps) or was originally intended for cars or something else instead.

Until I got that, I made do with a plastic spatula, holding it by the back of the blade rather than the handle. I suspect that someone who is skilled with carpentry might be able to knock up a decent wooden alternative.

Wulf