I have recently been thinking about learning how to make bread. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I came upon an easy recipe from cooks country for dinner rolls. Although this sounds like a great project for thanksgiving, I wanted to really learn what making bread is all about. Through a friends blog, I came across a blog that was working through making all the breads from Bread Bakers Apprentice, a book by Peter Reinhart and Ron Manville. It looked promising and very educational but I didn't want to just go out and buy the first thing I saw so I began to read the reviews...
After an hour or so, I ended up at Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Bakers Book of Techniques and Recipes. The first book by Reinhart had great illustrations and quite a few recipes but also gave the option of using margarine or shortening in all of the recipes. I love butter and feel strongly about using butter in baking and I am sure that the french are not using margarine or shortening in their croissants so even giving the option of something other than butter was enough to turn me off the book. I consequently decided that Hamelman would be the choice for me. Now, back to Bread Bakers Apprentice or BBA as it is commonly called...
BBA has quite a following and can be found around as a sort of book club thing. Initially, I thought the concept of baking through all the bread recipes in BBA would be exciting and rewarding but after having the margarine and shortening problem, the BBA group was quickly out for me. Long story short, I will be baking through Hamelman's book and blogging about each bread I make. I hope this works!
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