Orwashers Artisan Bread: 100 Years of Techniques and Recipes

by Keith Cohen

In 2007, Keith Cohen purchased New York’s Orwasher’s Bakery, listed among the top ten bakeries in America. He launched a new line of Artisan Wine Breads in 2009 under the brand name Oven Artisans. Cohen created his new breads with a wine grape starter in collaboration with Channing Daughters Vineyard in Long Island.The technique used dates back to ancient Egypt, where bakers who were baking bread in the same facility as wine was being fermented discovering that the natural yeast in the air from the fermenting grapes would leaven the bread and give it special flavor.

In 2010, Cohen premiered his beer bread—a chewy, dark-hued creation with a nutty, robust flavor that comes from the Otis Stout from Sixpoint Craft Ales that’s mixed into the dough.
Artisan Bread will feature the techniques used as well as the recipes for Orwasher’s most famous breads adapted specifically to facilitate home baking.

Genres: Cookbooks

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Sandra Noel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love bread. If it were possible for me to live on bread and cheese I probably would, so I couldn't wait to get this cookbook. Upon reading it, I was left with very mixed feelings.

On the positive side, this book is worth it for the information alone. The actual bread recipes don't even start until about page 115, in chapter five. There is a great assortment of recipes for all kinds of bread and make you want to get started. My mouth watered just looking at the photos and reading the recipes. The instructions are clear, but here we get to the first issue.

ALL the recipe instructions are for using a stand mixer. There are no alternative instructions for doing it by hand. These are very specific instructions as well; x amount of minutes on this speed, then x amount of minutes on this speed. As I don't have a stand mixer at the moment, that presents an interesting dilemma to me. I just have to wing it and do my best to get it right.

The other issue is rather a big one. Page 108 gives the recipe to start the "Mother", which you will need for 3 of the 6 starters; White Rye and Dark Rye and White Starter. It calls for 1 lb of vineyard grapes, destemmed, but not washed (or you will lose the natural yeast on the outside of the grapes), flour and water. How, exactly, does he expect people who live in parts of the country without access to 'vineyard grapes', make this starter? That's it. There are no substitutions given. If you can't make this starter, you basically have lost most of the recipes in the book.

This is a gorgeous book full of amazing looking bread. However, if you want to make most of the breads in it, make sure you can get some vineyard grapes. If you can, enjoy!

I received a copy of this book from Race Point Publishing for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Jocelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. The recipes on here seem simple enough. I have yet to try it though. If you like to bake a lot this book is great it has plenty of recipes and images to know what you are looking at. Be warned it includes mouth watering recipes.