Bread Dean Brettschneider
Penguin, $45
Flour, salt, yeast and water. Should be simple, right? But if the batteries in your digital scales have gone flat, you’ve guessed what 15 grams of brown sugar looks like, and you didn’t read the recipe early enough to realise your water should have been chilling in the fridge overnight, then, trust me, you’ll be poaching your bagels with trepidation.
Dean Brettschneider bills himself the ‘‘global baker’’. I’d say he’s also a bit of perfectionist. His latest book contains 39 introductory pages dedicated to describing the ingredients, utensils and science of breadmaking.
‘‘Baking is actually rather easy,’’ writes the international know-it-all. ‘‘It’s only a lack of understanding and knowledge that complicates it.’’
I just wanted bagels for breakfast, so I skipped straight to the savoury chapter and got kneading.
Bread is one of those cookbooks I know I’ll actually use. It provides, for example, the means to make sourdough from scratch using a 10-day regime that begins with capturing wild yeasts and finishes with a starter strong enough to produce a loaf.
Many of the recipes require a quantity of this starter – think beetroot and thyme baguettes – so you’ll need to be organised. Others, like an onion fougasse, use a quicker ferment put together 24-hours earlier. The ‘‘grainy and healthy’’ chapter includes particularly delicious-looking dark beer, walnut and cranberry rolls that can be made on the day of eating.
Brettschneider writes that it was his grandmother who gave him his first insight into the world of bread, when she taught him to make scones – covered off in the ‘‘quick bread’’ chapter, which features barbecuefriendly damper and a savoury muffin containing a whole hard-boiled egg.
Bread is the not-so-humble star of many special occasions. A chapter on festive bread ensures you’ll need never suffer inferior hot cross buns again. And if it all goes terribly wrong you can always turn to the ‘‘not quite bread’’ chapter for a spiced-chocolate take on bread pudding.