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| The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens | 
 enlarge | Authors: Daniel Wing, Alan Scott
Publisher: Chelsea Green
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $21.94
You Save: $13.06 (37%)
New (34) Used (11) from $20.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 16665
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 250
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 8 x 0.8
ISBN: 1890132055
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.815
EAN: 9781890132057
ASIN: 1890132055
Publication Date: July 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens January 16, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I purchased 5 of these books one for me and four for friends. I was phoned and thanked for such an "interesting and illuminating gift". This book is honest, sensible, healthy and really useful. I am so glad I was advised to get it from a sourdough baker in Australia!! Yes it is better than Good.
Art and science of artisanal baking January 8, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The only thing I would add to all these other laudatory reviews is this:
Be careful before you order this book. There is a good chance you will be overtaken with equipment lust and just HAVE to have a masonry oven in your backyard!!!
Seriously, it's a great book. If you're at all curious about old-fashioned leavened bread as opposed to the baloony-yeasty variety, check this out.
Best Book on Everything About Baking Bread November 5, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This books is excellent...gives detail, explicit descriptions about the entire science and process of bread building!! I have read this book over and over and each time I learn more than I did before. It is an easy to read book, there is just so much detail on everything. The recipe testers for "Cooks Illustrated" (a fabulous magazine for very serious cooks) used this book to help refine their bread recipes!! A must have for bakers!!! Also a good book for recipes is "The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book."
 Professional guidance August 31, 2006
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
Great help and inspiration for anyone interested in baking good bread - especially in a traditional bake oven. (Includes chapters on how to build your own oven, which was not my main interest.) Easy language. Full of facts!
Excellent source for the dedicated baker, plus great oven-building instructions. June 24, 2006
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
I bought this book looking for oven-building instructions. As an architect, I can attest that the plans and step-by-step buidling instructions are excellent. I have mixed feelings in reporting that an outstanding bakery opened right down the street about the time the book arrived, and so I haven't been able to justify building my own bread oven yet, but I look forward to that first hearth loaf. Meanwhile, I've been able to compare the excellent bread from the new bakery with my own, baked in a standard oven according to Wing and Scott's recommendations. It is evident that I'm no professional baker, but my loaves do have a complexity of flavor and longevity that are promising.
Baking is a true craft. You can't just follow a recipe and expect excellent results [see my review of Rose Levy Beranbaum's flawed The Bread Bible]. There are endless little adjustments that a good baker makes in water content, flour selection/milling, rising temperatures, leavening formulae, loaf-shaping, etc., etc., etc. It takes years of patient pratice to get it right. Accordingly, no simple cookbook-like text will set you on the right path. True, you can make good bread at home with instant yeast and a little bit of care, but great bread requires much more attention and practice. The text of The Bread Builders never quite offers a recipe. Instead, it lays out the science and art of baking, attributing quite a bit to the "feel" of the baker. This has been at times frustrating to me, but it is the only true path to great bread. This book stubbornly and correctly refuses to offer one-size-fits-all recipes and simplifications. If you're serious about baking excellent bread, this is an outstanding source.
I should note that this book, under a thick stucco of flour and water, holds place of honor on the shelf at our new best bakery in town.
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