New Peter Renhart bread book "Artisan Breads Every Day" - Biscuits

[housewolf]

I just got my hands on the new bread book by master bread baker Peter Reinhart - "Artisan Breads Every Day - Fast and Easy Recipes for World-Class Breads". What a treat! Some of you might remember that Lucinda and I both were involved (in a very limited way) in testing some of the recipes for this book last spring. I'm delighted beyond words to have the final hardcopy in my hands!

Peter Reinhart is on of my favorite bread book authors. I own most all of his bread books (with the exception of the Pizza book) and love them all. His work has been a backbone of much of what I've learned about bread baking over the past number of years. They are "go to" books for me - excellent reference material and teriffic recipes, sometimes fun to pick up and just browse the pictures and descriptions to gain inspiration or new ideas. The recipes are reliable, each one having been extensively tested by a number of home bakers who volunteer their time, ingredients and efforts to work the kinks out and contribute real-life suggestions and feedback.

But most of all, what I love about Peter's bread books is that each one builds on his previous work. His goal in life, as a baker, is to develop as much natural bread flavor as possible in breads that are also beauteous to behold in both crust and crumb. He studies, experiments and continuously learns new techniques of bread baking, refines/redefines tradtional and classical methods to create even better loaves. Each of his bread books (Crust & Crumb, The Bread Baker's Apprentice Whole Grain Breads and now this one, Artisan Breads Every Day) takes the quest for an even better loaf a step forward.

This new book is built on the work of Steve Sullivan, Jim Lehay, the NYT no-knead bread, ABIN5 as well a Peter's own work of flavor development through the use of cool, slow fermentation. The instructions are well written and easy to follow, and there are step-by-step photos accompaning each recipe (which are REALLY helpful).

To quote from the preface:
"The past few years have seen the publication of a number of bread books that offer original methods for simplifying the bread making process. Yet during the same period, a few excellent books have appeared that reveal the advanced methods of true artisan bakers from around the world. We want it all: great bread, but fase and easy. Yes, it does seem like a contradiction since the premise of artisan bread is long, slow fermentation. Despite the often complex descriptions of methodology, bread making actually isn't all that difficult, so achieivin ghte "asey" part is, well, easy. The "fast" part is where the challenge comes in.

Baking is primarily about the balancing act between time, temperature, and ingredients. Everything else is connected to this. In my previoius books, I have taken readers ona yourney in search of all the workable variations on this theme of time, temperature and ingredients. My goal in this book is to gurther synthesize that knowledge and apply it in a new way to create a system of baking that anyone can understand and perform. .

In the following pages, I'll explain a variety of options for everything from pre-ferments to mixing methods to fermentation. In some situations, it's clear that a certain approach iss preferable to achieve the desired results. While I definitely love explring all of the options, you need to decide what works for you when it comes to balancing time with temperature and ingredients. What I intend to do in this book is funnel some of the newer baking methods and ideas through the structure of classic techniques and proven wisdom to broaden your sense of the options available to you."

Chapter 1 - Baking Basics
Chapter 2 - Sourdough and Wild Yeast Fundamentals
Chapter 3 - French Breads and Sourdough Hearth Breads
Chapter 4 - Enriched Breads
Chapter 5 - Rich Breads

For more info
http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Reinharts-Artisan-Breads-Every/dp/1580089984/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263347417&sr=8-1

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Because I was in a hurry to bake something from this book and didn't want to wait through the overnight refrigeration, I picked "The Best Biscuits Ever" from Chapter 5 as my inaugural bake. It is a glorious cream and buter biscuit mixed in a food processor. All I can say is ... WOW! I've never baked such tender and flaky biscuits ever. I only baked a half-batch and cut them small so they'll last me for a few days (had to stick them in the freezer right away or I'd have inahled tooooo many of them this afternoon!)

Here is a picture (my camera doesn't do them justice):



Happy baking!






:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[WhiteTara]

1. thanks, I need a good bread book n/t

[troubleinwinter]

2. Peter and his wife, Susan

are friends of mine. They lived across the street from my parents when they were writing a couple of his books. We were willing guinea pigs for their experiments! Yummmm! They also had lots of parties with lots of known 'foodies' in attendance (often pot-lucks) - great restauranteurs & cookbook writers & critics. At one party, a writer had brought some divine marinated, grilled vegetables. I said to him that I was CRAZY about one certain thing but what was it? He looked at me like I had three eyes, and said, "Why parsnip, of course." Now I eat parsnips!

Peter is the nicest, most interesting person in the world. If you ever run across his (out of print) first book, "Sacramental Magic in a Small Town Cafe", GRAB IT!!! Fascinating stories (and recipes) about how they got their start cooking in their small religious commune.

[housewolf]

6. Lucky, lucky you!

I met Peter some years ago and found him to be just a wonderful guy - so giving and generous, wanting to be helpful, great sense of humor. What I love the most about his is that he keeps learning and growing and is willing to learn from anyone. I have his "Sacramental Magic" book as well as "Brother Juniper's" and his respect/reverance for the transformative aspect of bread-making has contributed to my own learning and respect for the process that is beyond the final product.

What a great story about the parsnips!

I loved reading your post, thank you for it.

[Warpy]

3. If I had to pare down to one bread book, it would be a tossup

between "The King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary" and "Crust and Crumb."

The King Arthur book has all sorts of quick breads while Reinhart's book only has master recipes and leaves the variations up to the baker, but it contains such a wealth of information on techniques it just might win the contest.

Thank goodness I don't have to choose. I can keep both.

Those biscuits look wonderful, too wonderful, dangerous for me to have around.

[hippywife]

4. Those biscuits look delish!

I'm excited that you love it so much. I'll have to check it out and see if I can't get even better, deeper flavors out of breads using his methods.

:bounce: :bounce: :hug: :bounce: :bounce:

(Had to squeeze a hug in there for you. LOL)

[housewolf]

5. I thought about you re: these biscuits

They might be closer to what you've been looking for (if you're still looking for better biscuits, that is). They're really good, and separate into lovely layers. I'll try them with buttermilk the next time and see what the difference is, or maybe half buttermilk, half cream. I get a quite thick 40% cream here (which is considerably thicker than any cream I've ever used before) so I ended up needing to add quite a bit more than the recipe called for to bring the dough together, so I'm curious as to whether I would still require more using buttermilk.

Thanks for the hug - I needed that!



:loveya:

[hippywife]

7. I did tell Bill last night that I just might need

another cookbook. LOL I'll probably order it soon. Thanx! :hug: