Beard on Bread: A Cookbook

By James Beard and James Beard

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The definitive cookbook on bread baking, Beard on Bread contains 100 recipes and variations for making delicious, fresh bread at home.

Covering breads from Sourdough to Challah, Brioche to fruits breads, and Parker House Rolls to Buttermilk White Bread, this classic cookbook brings together simple, easy-to-make recipes from across America and around the world. Written by culinary icon James Beard--the "Dean of American Gastronomy"--and featuring a wonderful variety of different types of bread--plain, whole-meal, and sweetened breads, batter breads, baking powder and soda breads, rolls, flat breads, filled breads, fried breads, and more--as well as a 12-point list of remedies to help you bake a better loaf, this is the only book home bakers need in order to master the art of making bread.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679755047
• ISBN13: 9780679755043
• Release Date: February 1995
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Real Bread, Very Timely in 2009 as it was in 1973

If you want diet bread or are a professional baker, don't get this book. That said, for those of us who admit we don't make perfect loaves every time and like rich, tasty homemade bread, it's a godsend. Beard's opinions are very welcome in this age of PC, and I agree with his assessment of sourdoughs and starters. I admit it, I'm not a smug sourdough baker. Starters require investment of time and ingredients, (throwing out unused starter when you have no outlet is a waste), and yield inconsistent results. I feel sad for people who give names to a puddle of fungi and flour and treat it like offspring. Beard's recollection of midnight punch-downs, wood stoves and the like are welcome additions to his easy and well-illustrated methods.

Glad I bought another copy

James Beard was one of those wonderful chefs who could make even the most humble foods fit for kings. My original paperback is so dog-eared, with so many notes scribbled in the margins about the scrumptious Beard bread recipes I've tried out, I had no choice but to buy another, larger format book. Yay! Even more space for notes and observations. Beard's creations live on. If you love bread, you'll love this book and so will the willing recipients of the goodness that comes from Beard, through your kitchen, to them.