The Best Cookbooks List

COOKBOOK REVIEW: Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day

 

Artisan Bread In Five Minutes  by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D. and Zoe Francois

Most of you know how crazy I am about great bread and making bread. I love a chewy crisp crust, a slight sourdough taste. I also love biscuits, soft and tender. Popovers, cheesy and hot. Baguettes are my constant quest.

So it was with delight that I spotted the title of this book as it promised a new way of enjoying making bread. The authors found a way to separate the work of making bread so that when you are ready to bake your loaf it only takes five minutes prep time before popping it in the oven. Brilliant.

"First, mix the ingredients from our recipe into a container all at once, and then let them sit for two hours. Now you are ready to shape and bake the bread, or you can refrigerate the dough and use it over the next couple of weeks. Yes, weeks! When you want fresh-baked crusty bread, take a piece of the dough from the container and shape it into a loaf."

I love these guys. Their "secret" and the special recipe for it will liberate home bakers everywhere and have them firing up their home ovens for their daily bread. Especially in testing economic times, making bread at home is an economical and totally satifying way of coping with keeping good nutritious food on the table.

After you make their master recipe, you are ready to create all sorts of loaves, pizzas, big soft pretzels, ciabatta, pannetone, and breakfast breads. I made the Roasted Red Pepper Fougasse and it was perfect.

If you love bread, go get this book. It is a must-have for a happy kitchen and it makes a wonderful gift for your foodie friends. I have mine marked up so that I have fresh loaves for the next couple of months. How happy am I?!

Artisan Bread In Five Minutes , St. Martin's Press, 2011.

COOKBOOK REVIEW: Tart Love

When I heard Holly Herrick had a new cookbook coming out in October about making tarts, I asked for an advance copy to review. I don't have a hard copy, but I do have a full cookbook in pdf format in front of me that I have already marked up and started baking from.

Tart Love: Sassy, Savory, and Sweet has already stolen a place on the top shelf in my kitchen where I keep my favorites. I have laminated the outside covers so that it holds up until I get my hard copy!

You know how I love baking and sweet little things, but I have been spending time in her chapter on Savory Pies and Pot Pies---mainly because of memories of my grandmother Mimi's scrumptious little chicken pot pies. She used to order old hens from the Amish country so that her chicken stock was strong and flavorful. Her crust was flaky, her pies in demand.

Holly describes her recipe for chicken pot pie this way. It is quite different from my grandmother Mimi's, but it turned out to be equally beguiling:

 "Maybe it's because of the fronds that flutter in the late summer winds like deep green lace from the stalks of the perennial fragrant herb we call fennel, that it strikes me as a particularly delicate thing to be used with extreme care. The entire herb is used in these light, beautifully fragrant pot pies.

A whole chicken is gently poached with the stalks to lend to the stock its signature anise kiss."

Where Mimi's was hearty, bold and creamy, Holly's is an elevated chicken pot pie that echoes anise by the use of both fennel and Pernod. 

This chapter holds four substantial recipes for main course pot pies: Shepherd's Pie, Pot Roast Pot Pies, Braised Pork Shank-Fresh Fig-and Sweet Potato Pot Pies, and the Chicken and Fresh Corn Pot Pie. 

Holly amplifies the marriage of her southern roots with her culinary training in France to produce recipes that take the best from both worlds. There's a decadent Lavender Buttermilk Tart---a little bit Provence, a little bit Charleston. There's a Tuna Nicoise Tart as well as several tarts using sweet potatoes. Technique sometimes French, ingredients sometimes southern. The combination is sublime and works for American cooks who can easily find the ingredients she uses.

And why this book is especially good is that it devotes time to teaching how to perfect crust, which after all is the essence of a good tart. When I find a good crust recipe I save it with stars. I have flaky crust recipes that are great. Cookie crust recipes I use for fruit tarts. Savory crust recipes for fish and meat. Holly provides us with lengthy descriptions and hand holding so that her tart crusts come out just perfect and are totally dependable. They are also flavorful, something a lot of crusts miss out on.

You can pre-order Tart Love on Amazon now and it will be in book stores as of October 1, 2011. This is a reference book you will want to own. It is a must have book if you have tart love.

Tart Love: Sassy, Savory, and Sweet by Hollry Herrick. 

SIMPLY GREAT BREADS by Daniel Leader

 

Simply Great Breads: Sweet and Savory Yeasted Treats from America's Premier Artisan Baker by Daniel Leader

Wine in pizza crust?! I love this book! Beyond the intrigue of using wine instead of water when making my pizza dough, it was the great taste I achieved that sold me on this method. The recipe from this new book is a charmer. My rediscovered passion for making yeasty treats is well catered to by the easy to follow recipes that yield complex tasting breads, sweet breads, rolls, and variations thereof.

 
One of my favorite weekend projects is to make a Breakfast Basket of breads so I was delighted to see the very first chapter of Daniel's book dedicated to the same. I tried the Brioche Muffins: excellent. And I am now looking forward to playing with his variations on that theme, including trying Fig Brioche Muffins. 

Although Daniel specializes in organic baking with whole grain breads, he provides classic "regular dough" recipes for bagels and ciabatta as well as guidance on making not so well-known breads like Navajo Fry Bread and Mana'eesh.

My mood recently was for something very homy and comforting, so I tried making his Angel Biscuits from the book. I liked that the night before I could simply combine a few ingredients and then in the morning add a few more ingredients and pop it in the oven to yield heavenly light flaky biscuits which I slit open, slathered with sweet butter and added a dollop of fresh jam (also a recipe from his book!). I was so happy! They were perfection. 

For newbies to bread baking, Simply Great Breads: Sweet and Savory Yeasted Treats from America's Premier Artisan Baker is a wonderful quick introduction that strips away the mystery of the process. For experienced bread makers, it is a delight in that it offers the platform of basic proven recipes that can be added to and experimented with. This is a valuable addition to anyone's cookbook collection.