The Bread Bible

The Bread Bible
Beth Hensperger's 300 Favorite Recipes

By Beth Hensperger

Bread is the staff of life and for bakers everywhere, the last word on bread baking will be Beth Hensperger's newest book The Bread Bible, Beth Hensperger's 300 Favorite Recipes. This is the only book on bread baking bakers will ever need.

For The Bread Bible, Hensperger culled hundreds of her time-tested recipes, both classic and intriguingly original, to come up with 300 favorites. She has refined and improved each recipe for today's modern. Hensperger covers everything from simple basic white breads to dense and texture-terrific whole grain breads, as well as breads made with herbs, cheeses, and nuts. Here are recipes for dinner rolls, biscuits, muffins, coffee cakes, waffles, popovers pancakes, and crepes, as well as pizza, calzone, and focaccia. Everything old is new again, and the book also, includes recipes for flatbreads such as tortillas, fry breads, and pita breads. And for those short on time, this thorough book also includes recipes for quick breads and breads using food processors or bread machines.

Hensperger organized The Bread Bible by type of bread, with new sections that include detailed how-tos. She's streamlined the techniques for easy reference, and tip boxes offering "bakers' wisdom" guide readers every step of the way.

Try these innovative recipes for variety:

Anadama Bread with Tillamook Cheddar Cheese
Pain Hawaiian—gloriously flavored with macadamia nuts
Roasted Chestnut Bread
Squash Cloverleaf Dinner Rolls
Pancetta-Onion Gruyere Ring
Pain de Seigle
Eggplant, Pepper, and Artichoke Pie
Baked Apple and Pear Oven Pancake

Great classic recipes abound, too:

White Mountain Bread
Classic Buttermilk Biscuit's
Herbed Focaccia
Traditional English Muffins
Vanilla Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Buckwheat Pancakes

Hensperger especially loves celebration and dessert breads and her chapters on these are filled with hints and insight on the age-old art of making these cherished breads. Try her Stollen with Dried Cherries and Pineapple. Her recipe for Hot Cross Buns with Dried Fruit and Two Glazes is also a must. And who can resist Golden Rum Babas?

The recipes in The Bread Bible represent thirty years of research and testing. After exploring them bakers at all levels of experience will be, kneading, rising, braiding, shaping, and baking breads as though it were second nature.

About The Author

With no formal training, Beth Hensperger learned the basic skills of bread baking by sheer tenacity—one winter she worked her way through each recipe of the Tassajara Bread Book, and A World of Bread by Dolores Casella. She also attended classes give by some of the top bakers in America.

Her writing career began when she was chosen as a guest cooking instructor for the March 1985 issue of Bon Appetit. Now an acknowledged expert on bread and breadmaking, she has a monthly column in the San Jose Mercury News, called "Baking by the Seasons," and has written articles on the art of baking for Good Housekeeping, Bon Appetit, Shape Cooks, Pastry Art & Design, and Food & Wine. She has twice been nominated for the IACP Julia Child Cookbook Awards. Her previous books are Bread, Baking Bread, The Art of Quick Breads, Bread for All Seasons, Beth's Basic Bread Book, and Breads of the Southwest, all published by Chronicle Books.

The Bread Bible
By Beth Hensperger
Chronicle Books
Hardbound, $32.50
528 pages, 30 illustrations
ISBN: 0-8118-1686-9
Information provided by the publisher.