LOL! Someone baked his way through "The Bread Bible" from start to finish

[housewolf]

Matthew Boyer baked each and every recipe from Rose Levy Berenbaum's "The Bread Bible", and sent pictures to her when he was done - 132 bread recipes! An inexperienced bread baker, he started in the spring of 2007 and made every single kneaded bread BY HAND!

Here's RLB's post about with his pictures:
http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2010/08/the_complete_bread_bible_inclu.html

And over on her blog, Marie Wolfe also baked her way through "The Bread Bible" and provides pictures of every step of every recipe
http://breadbasketcase.blogspot.com/

Great resources for a one of my favorite bread baking books! (Can't wait to give those Cinnamon Sugar Popovers a try :bounce: )

[Phentex]

1. those are his pictures?

I find that hard to believe. He doesn't bake bread but decides to try it and he just happens to take perfect pictures (of perfect loaves) to go along with his experiment.

What, is he ripping off Julie and Julia?

[Phentex]

2. ps Maria's is far more realistic

just an opinion

[madmax]

3. Bet he has some huge

biceps by now. :evilgrin:

[hippywife]

4. Those are some gorgeous pics.

I think I would have had a nervous breakdown attempting such a thing, and definitely would not have succeeded. :crazy:

Hi, B. :hi:

[housewolf]

5. Don't forget... it took him 3+ years to do this thing

My thing is, for me, ... I'm just not interested in many of the breads, as inspired as I am by folks who are excited to take on such projects.

It definitely takes a lot of passion and commitment to take on such a project and follow through with it.

There are a number of internet baking groups groups who decide to bake their way through certain cook books and share their results. Some that I am aware of are Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" Challenge group, "Sweet Melissa Sundays" baking their way through "The Sweet Melissa Baking Book", "Tuesdays with Dorie" baking thier way through Dorie Greenspan's "Baking From My House to Yours" and now re-grouping around Greenspan's new French cooking book. I only know about a few baking groups, but I imagine there are other groups exploring other types of cooking in such a collective manner.

I suspect that some of those Bread Bible breads he had to make over and over again to get them to turn out so picture-perfect! LOL I also suspect that he had a coach teaching him how to handle the dough and shape the loaves... they just look too professional to me. I'd have loved to have had a personal bread coach teach me how to shape loaves early in my bread-baking endeavors! I used to marvel aat how beautifullly-shaped many of Lucinda's breads were, especially for a new bread baker, she put out very gorgeous loaves. She told me one time that she thought it was because she'd done pottery and some of those skills transferred over to dough-handling. Sweet memory of sweet Lucinda.

Good seein' you, HW! :hug: :hug: :hug:

[hippywife]

6. I'm with you on not being interested

in all of the recipes, but there are quite a few that do appeal. And I also agree with 'cinda about working pottery and dough being similar. I'm just very impatient sometimes with both. LOL

I do miss her. I hope she is alive and well.

Always, always good to see you, too, sweet B. :hug:

[housewolf]

7. I wish the same as you

HW, you are just the dearest person! You are one of the biggest-hearted people I've ever been blessed with coming across. A true jewel, you are.

There something about having a gift of being able to form beautiful things and create with one's hands. Lucinda had it. I, unfortunately, don't! I can make things that taste wonderful, but not be beautiful. Try and try as I might, it's just not in me... there are other things I do pretty well.

Happy evening to you, dear friend,


:toast:

[hippywife]

8. A very sweet thing to say, B.

And I feel the same about you and others in this group. It really is a haven of sanity.

I'm also sure you can do anything you set to experimenting with, hon. Everyone starts off new at something, some of us just take a little longer to achieve similar results, and some of us just have to say, "Good enough!" I know I do that more often than not myself. Perfection is not as important as the heart and soul put into what we do.

:hug: