Cookbook review: Bread: From Ciabatta to Rye
Posted on Jun 21, 2009 07:40:56 AM
I’ve had this cookbook Bread: From Ciabatta to Rye (for .co.uk click here) by Linda Collister for over a year now, but I haven’t used it enough. As many do, I’ve got into the habit of sticking to the same 3 or 4 usual recipes.
As the title suggests… the cookbook is about bread. It’s divided by continents, with a selection of bread recipes from the Americas, Europe, the Middle and Far East, Africa, Australia. The author also explains the different kinds of flours and yeasts, and how to make sourdough.
There’s just one thing she hasn’t paid enough attention to. The yeast used in the recipes is always fresh, and quantities vary according to the kind of bread and quantity of flour. There are also quantities for dry yeast, but if you look closer you’ll find that they’re always the same regardless of the recipe: 500g of flour? 1 sachet of dry yeast. 300g? 1 sachet. This isn’t very helpful for first-time bakers, who will use dry yeast most of the time beacause it’s easier to find. But at the end of the day it’s no big deal: if you use dry yeast with this cookbook stick to the instructions on the sachet.
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