Mastering Bread: The Art and Practice of Handmade Sourdough, Yeast Bread, and Pastry [A Baking Book] [Spiral-bound] Marc Vetri; Claire Kopp McWilliams and David Joachim

by Marc Vetri, Claire Kopp McWilliams, David Joachim

Purchased directly from the publisher, authorized distributor, or author. Professionally spiraled and resold by a third party. This spiraled book is not necessarily affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by the publisher, distributor, or author.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Collections

304 pages, Spiral-bound

Published October 27, 2020

Reviews

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I've just read enough blogs and books about bread at this point, but I found this to explain breadmaking at just the right level of complexity that I was looking for - I'm a Big Picture learner, so the explanations of the science behind breadmaking combined with techniques and recipes was in just the right balance.

[Jacki Gillow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of good learning. One day I will be a master jedi at bread baking!

[Lloyd Earickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you looked at the title of this post and thought something along the lines of ‘a cookbook review?  What is there to review about a cookbook?  Is this some kind of joke?  What is this site coming to?’, well, that’s exactly what I would have thought, too.  In my mind, cookbooks were just binders of recipes you keep on a greasy shelf somewhere that may or may not be close to the kitchen, from which you might have one or two go-to recipes you follow for nostalgia’s sake, and otherwise they serve little useful purpose.  That is, until I received a copy of Mastering Bread as a gift.

Most of you probably don’t know that, aside from my dominant writing hobby, and the minor woodworking hobby to which I alluded in my review for Human Dimension and Interior Space (which I maintain is one of the most oft-applicable books I’ve read), I have something of a cooking habit, including sourdough bread.  For the past few years, I’ve been experimenting with different forms of naturally leavened doughs, so a detailed cookbook was not an illogical gift, but I admit that I did not expect it to be, well, a book of the kind one would sit and read.  I expected a list of recipes.

Instead, somewhere along the line, cookbooks became something different from what I remember.  Instead of a plain list of recipes, perhaps with some pretty photographs of food, Mastering Bread (and other modern cookbooks, apparently) is a combination of traditional cookbook, textbook, and memoir.  Maybe this is the result of the various epicurean movements of recent years, or the food blogging phenomenon, or the proliferation of internet recipes in text and video forms.  To my surprise, I found myself actually sitting down and reading a cookbook, of all things, with my breakfast in the morning instead of the news or a book about relativity (don’t worry – that review will still be coming soon).

Since I haven’t tried all of the recipes (and have a tendency to treat recipes more like guidelines than rules, despite, or perhaps in reaction to, my engineering tendencies and background), I cannot speak to their quality, though they appear to be rigorously tested (especially the panettone one at the end).  The textbook portions, though, were quite useful, compiling in one place and in a coherent fashion the practical science behind bread baking, such that I already know several ways in which I could incorporate various techniques and methods to improve my own loaves, even if I didn’t make a single recipe from the book.

What was a little overstated, and what bothered me a bit about the whole book, was the authors’ obsession with freshly milled flours.  While I’m prepared to accept that, like chocolate, cheese, and potentially beef, flours taste different depending on where they’re raised, the exact variety, and how they’re treated, the focus on freshly milled flours is such that the entire book has a certain unapproachability.  I enjoy my baking, but I try to keep the hobby from dominating too much – that’s why I don’t do as much actual woodworking as I think about doing, and it’s why writing is such a perfect hobby for me – and buying wheat berries in bulk and investing in a stone mill to grind my own flours is the opposite of my approach.  While the book grudgingly allows that you can purchase freshly milled flours, it says that they lose their proper flavors quickly, and buying such ‘artisan’ flours is three times as expensive as buying the bread flour I can get at the grocery store.  So, while I do not doubt the general legitimacy of the point, it does strike me as overstated to the point of interfering with the purpose for such a text’s existence.

Another, relatively minor point, is that the book’s photography could have been more useful.  The whole piece is well put together, and the photographs that are present are lovely, and a few recipes have excellent step-by-steps with images associated with each step, but many of the recipes have no images at all, and some that do have images that don’t communicate very much of value about the food involved.  In a fairly technical manual of bread baking, it would have been more useful for the recipes to include images of things like what the crumb structure is supposed to look like, or what the dough looks like at various levels of rising and proofing.

I know not everyone is interested in making their own bread, and I can’t say that I’ve read enough cookbooks to tell you if this is the one you should get if you’re interested or not – I mean, I didn’t even know you could read cookbooks before I read this one – but food is something that is universal.  We all have to eat, and bread is a staple of almost every culture’s diet.  This book was useful to me, but if nothing else, I hope you take from this post that there is more to modern cookbooks that just lists of recipes.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent look at all the science aspects of baking bread, from the grains to the oven temperature, but it does get slightly bogged down in personal anecdotes rather than just getting to the recipes already.

[Laura Burdick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some interesting information in it, but definitely too advanced for me. I was looking for more of a beginner's introduction to sourdough.

[Elizabeth Gajdosik · Rating 3 out of 5]

That's a lot of science.

[Mckinley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of details and explanations about making and baking bread.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

More advanced recipes than I'm currently looking for.

[Steven J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed on how to create great bread. He uses a preferred method of the Stone hotel bake method that is unique to baking many very complicated loaves and not many sourdough loaf recipes

[Lyslie Lewellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't wait to try out these recipes with freshly milled flour.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for bakers. Working my way through the recipes. Love the process of making bread…it’s like an addiction for me.

[Becky O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few new techniques and recipes to try! Worth a read for sure 👏🏼

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've found think book interesting and informative with good clear instructions in the recipes. I may update when I have tried more of them, but my first attempt at pita bread was quite a success. The format of the recipes might annoy some people as there is a lot of text explanation and it's not easy to just skip over to say, the baking time. But the idea of the book is to go more in depth in the baking process, rather than a quick, mix x and y together and bake ant z temp. Another thing to note: The authors are very sold on freshly milled flour (whether it's from a local mill or DIY), there's quite a bit of an explanation about that in the beginning of the book, so pretty much all the recipes call for some form of freshly milled whole grain flour (or "bolted hard wheat flour"). That isn't to say that you can't make them with normal flour, but since all the recipes have been test baked with the whole grain freshly milled stuff it may turn out a bit different.

Pita- Mine never quite puffed like they were suposed to but tasted good
Usa Baguette- This was quite a failure, but I think mostly user error. I didn't have a couche for rising and my hotel pan was much too small so the loaves got squished in the oven.
Red Onion Focaccia - Turned out really well. Davis's favorite
Artichoke Fougasse - messed up the artichoke so ended up doin mushrooms, but turned out well. A good bread for dipping in olive oil.
Spelt Pretzels - One of my new favorite recipes, have made several times including with all purpose flour instead of the wheat flour and they have always turned out great. The last step is a bit involved since you are working with Lye.
Hoagie Rolls: Excellent sandwich bread
Bagels: These didn't turn out badly exactly, but they were a little disappointing compared to professional bagels. They didn't rise as much as I hoped. Also I could not figure out how to get the ends to stay together.
Olive Filone- Not bad, but seemed a little too dry to me
Oven Died Tomato Stecca - Used this a soup bread and liked it quite a bit.

Potato Bread - Made this several times for burgers, quite good
Grissini - I think I over salted this a bit and didn't stretch it as long as I should have so they were soft instead of cruchy, but still good
Brioche - Turned out OK
Ursa Challah - don't remember this one too well...
Olive oil Durum Rolls - Quite good Davis especially liked them
English muffins - New go-to breakfast baking
Cinnamon raisin pan loaf - raisins just aren't my favorite
Pane Alla Zucca - Not sure if it was because I put in too many eggs, but the dough just never held together right and was very crumbly at the end. Still tasted good
Honney Durum Batard - Liked this quite a bit
Beignets - Never heard of this before but very good
Cornetti - quite a failure, and the only recipe so far that was not really edible. The butter melted in the oven and flooded the bottom of the cornetti. Not sure what I did wrong.

Simple Sourdough table bread - Turned out alright, crust wasn't quite right, maybe I'm not spraying the hotel pan right?
Sesame Durum Bread - happy with how this turned out and looked pretty too
Pane Di Genzano - Davis liked this especially
Spelt Sourdough Boule - was quite hard to work, but turned out well.