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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
It’s a crunch and aroma you can savor in your mind before you even take a bite: that perfect crust and that perfect crumb you can get only in bread baked with craft and care. Artisan Baking puts that bread within reach of every home baker; even the beginner now deftly will be able to turn out sourdoughs, pizzas, corn breads, and baguettes that are truly out of this world. Step-by-step instructions explain the best professional methods, and mail-order sources for ingredients and equipment simplify the baking experience. This is a book to bake from, to learn from, to read from for the sheer pleasure of encountering the generosity of spirit of the country’s finest bakers as they share their abundant expertise.

First published five years ago to glowing praise and awards, Artisan Baking is “a rare combination of clear writing, meticulous recipes, and abundant expertise” (Fine Cooking) and the cookbook that “those who live for and on bread have been waiting for” (The New York Times). It was picked by the editor of Cookbook Digest as the one book she would choose if she could have only one bread-baking book in her life. Reprinted twice in hardcover, Artisan Baking is now, at last, in an affordable paperback format with a new, easier-to-handle trim size.

Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Not the only landmark January 7, 2009
I gave Artisan Baking as a gift to my husband, Jene. Here are his comments:

There is no disputing that Glezer's Artisan Baking is a landmark book, but it should be considered as just that: a landmark, not a complete tour guide. If your destination is French baguettes, sourdough breads, and unparalleled pizza crusts, you'll arrive successfully, probably on the first try. On the other hand, don't expect to find your way to good whole wheat or multi-grain breads, which are either absent or scantily treated.

Overall, this lovely book (kudos to photographer Ben Fink) suffers from a severe identity crisis. It can't decide whether to live on the coffee table or in the kitchen. Many cookbooks function well in both places, but not this one. On the coffee table, Artisan Baking is ostensibly a travelogue: you visit wheat fields, grain mills, and artisan bakeries around the country. In the kitchen, you flip pages endlessly looking for a recipe that isn't where you expect it because recipes are linked to the featured bakeries, not to baking techniques or ingredients. The two most logical recipes calling for sourdough are separated from the recipe for starting sourdough. One precedes the sourdough chapter, while the other is found much later in a chapter devoted to wood-fired ovens. Not coincidentally, the prose improves the closer it is to the dough board.

That said, you can expect the results you want. Like The Tassajara Bread Book and others, Artisan Baking is destined to linger on kitchen shelves for a long while, less because of the actual recipes than as a manual for learning techniques. If you bake as a hobby, you may wish to try many of the recipes, but if you bake all of the bread for your household, as I do, you will probably turn to more easily memorized recipes and bake them better for having used Glezer's book, which is certainly important, but far from being the only bread book you'll need.

5 out of 5 stars

Delightful! October 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I'm not sure that I can expand upon what's already been posted about this book- except to add my voice to the chorus of five-star reviews; it really -is- that good!

5 out of 5 stars

The Only Bread Book You'll Ever Need... August 4, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I have the hard back copy of this book that I purchased used; this was not available when I began making artisan breads. I think I purchased every artisan bread book out there and this is, by far, the best there is. I find that I rarely use my other bread books because the techniques and recipes in this book are so well written and produce outstanding results every time.

One tip for steaming your oven when making artisan breads from this book or any other - preheat your oven to 25 degrees higher than the recipe calls for. Place a roasting pan on the bottom shelf of your oven. Place your baking stone on the shelf where you will be baking. Have your breads ready to place in the oven, open the oven and put 1 - 2 cups of ice (depends on the baking time, use 1 cup for anything under 45 minutes) in the roasting pan, put the bread in the oven, close the oven door and reduce the heat to the baking temperature specified in the oven. This produces just the right amount of steam and you don't waste time and energy opening the oven and spritzing water in it every so often.

5 out of 5 stars

recipes from some of America's finest artisan bakeries July 21, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This book is a treasure trove for bread lovers. I'm glad that it's still available in paperback. Maggie Glezer traveled cross-country and gathered recipes from most of the pre-eminent artisan bakeries across America. I lived for a time in Boston and I was excited to see recipes from Cambridge's Hi-Rise Bakery included. Their Boston Brown Bread (p.66) is the best I've ever tasted - not too sweet, the right balance between hearty, slightly bitter rye and tangy and sweet molasses. Also included is their yeasted Corn Bread recipe (p. 64).

Glezer also managed to get recipes from Acme Bakery in Berkeley, CA (considered one of the founders of the revival in artisan baking), Sullivan St. Bakery of New York (best known as the originator of the No-Knead Bread recipe popularized by Mark Bittman in the pages of the New York Times), and many others.

Two particularly tasty and famous breads included are Kossar's Bialys (p. 174) and Bruno's Italian Pandoro (p.161), which takes a full 33 hours to make. I made the bialys and they were very good.

5 out of 5 stars

This is the one June 5, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful

Make this incredible bread book a part of your library...now...Just read it, and you will know....Love James Beard's Book--but this is where James would be now RIP!!