The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread

I doubt anyone will read this review, but this book is great. Buy it if you want to know about baking high quality breads.

The only thing I'd like to see in it would be more information on technique. For example, the correct way to kneed or other "assumed" skills.

Good book about bread baking. this is the second book i have read on this subject and this one is much better than the other. i followed the focaccia recipe and it turned out GREAT!!

Next recipe to try is the stollen.

The Bread Baker's Apprentice book is a good entry book for bread baking.

Most recipes are based on commercial yeast (as opposed to sourdough), making them more suitable for most readers. Those who are looking for sourdough based recipes should look elsewhere (for example Daniel Leader's Bread Alone).

My favorite recipe are bagels. Simple and great tasting. Bagels recipe alone is enough to buy this book. Retarded baguet taste great too. There are many recepies from around the world.

If you don't want to mess with sourdough, than I highly recomend this book.

I'm an idiot baker, but a little snooty about the bread I buy. So when I turned out the best baguette I've probably ever had, inside or outside of France, I knew this was a keeper. The book looks too pretty to be useful, but it rocks. Want the chemistry behind baking? Check. Want helpful photos demonstrating technique? Check. Want recipes that make complex and amazing bread? Yeah, baby. I've also made perfect, chewy bagels, gorgeous Pain a l'Ancienne, and challah. One of the best features of this book is that Reinhart doesn't tell you to go out and buy a bunch of bread tools: the back of a good cookie sheet will serve fine as a baking stone (just one of many examples). I'm all for that.

Downside: we're looking at potential double digits weight gain here. Sigh.

Although I have been a long-time satisfied customer, I now feel an obligation to warn you against purchasing this from Amazon. If you do, you will risk having an experience similar to mine and receiving a damaged book, or even receiving two damaged books.

Based upon two successive experiences, it appears that Amazon has either (1) discontinued its policy of using shrink-wrap to protect its books or (2) it continues to have such policy but does not adequately supervise its shipping department personnel so that books will not be unnecessarily damaged. In either event, its efforts to protect books during transit does not appear to be as reliable as before.

Initially, I decided to order Peter Reinhart's outstanding book from Amazon after seeing it at a local book store. I placed the order in the usual manner and was somewhat surprised to discover that inadequate packing material was used. Because the book was not protected with shrink wrap, it slid back and forth within the delivery box during transit which caused a signifigant rip in the upper right corner of the dust jacket, slight damage to the corner of the book, and damage to the entire front of the dust jacket when it was polished by the friction of rubbing against the interior of the cardboard box during transit.

Alright, I know what you're thinking. It's a minor item. Just contact customer service.

I did that. The first email response that I received was that Amazon did not have any control over the use of plastic wrap and that it was up to the book suppliers to do so.

Since the manner in which earlier books were consistently wrapped in shrink-wrap and the wrapping appeared to be similar regardless of the publisher, the initial answer that I received from customer service made no sense to me.

I pressed on. I contacted Amazon's customer service again and explained the situation. This time, I was told that Amazon would send a replacement and was told "please be assured that this will be packaged securely as you expect."

This sounded good. I wrapped the first book, stood in line at the post office, and mailed it back.

When the second book arrived, it, too, was packed loosely with no protective shrink wrap. As a result, the dust cover is somewhat polished, but not as bad as the first one. The book, however, does not have the same appearance as a new, undamaged one.

I sent another email to Amazon's customer service and waited for a reply. None came, or at least none has so far.

I'm going to keep the book, and I am not going to waste any more time at the post office. Peter Reinhart has some excellent ideas and I'm grateful that he shared them. The text within the book is well worthwhile. When I buy another book, however, I'm going to buy it at my local book store.