[.ca] Rustic European Breads (ISBN 0385477775)

Re-Discover the Joys of Hot Fresh Quality Bread:
After using my bread machine extensively for several years, the novelty of fresh hot bread had sort of worn off (imagine that). After visiting Europe, I really wanted to be able to eat the types of breads I ate there, but didn't know how to make them and didn't want to pay the high price here for specialty breads. This book is fun, informative, and has great recipes. If some of the other reviews that mention time and complexity scare you, you should realize that there the recipes in this book vary in complexity from extremely simple to complicated and that you should decide which recipes to make accordingly. Lastly, like all recipes, a certain amount of experimentation/variation may be needed to suit your needs; the authors teach you how to do it exactly right, but a little cheating will still yield awesome bread.

Nice ideas, but more work needed:
On the surface this book provides a multitude of ideas from its enthusiastic authors. Sadly however, the book suffers extensively from contradiction and inconsistency. Points made in the introductory section are not followed through in the recipe section. Particularly confounding are incorrect cross references and mixing of terminology to the point where it becomes very difficult to understand what they're on about! More extensive proof reading and testing of the recipes would have ironed out these problems. If you're experienced in the world of bread baking, then you might still find this book useful from an inspiration point of view. If, however you're looking for recipes which you'll follow to the letter, steer clear of this one: you'll be in for some not-so-pleasant surprises.

Mmmm.....very good!:
I have one thing to say to Larry from NM...."Phhbblltt!" (That's as close to a phonetic spelling of a raspberry I can think of.) I have a genetic disease that causes me to have tendonitis in my shoulders and elbows, making it impossible to bake bread from scratch. I bought a bread machine and love it but a square loaf is a square loaf. I LOVE THIS COOK BOOK! Finally I can bake bread by letting the machine do all the work and then I just have to shape and bake. Thank you so much for this wonderful collection of recipes and tips.

Good for people with lots of time to experiment:
The book "Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine" covers an appealing topic and is a nice bookshelf work, beautiful paper and layout, but I can't really recommend it as a book for people who actually want to bake directly with immediate result for the following reasons: - Recepies often refer to preparatory recepies, so when you pick something out of the index, expect to have to read many pages before you have the whole picture. - Indicated quantities needed to be adapted for them to work. Granted I only tried two recepies, but the family pizza dough of page 192 for instance needs 1 1/2 cups water instead of 1 cup and 2 tbl spoons water. I bake a lot, also from other books and never needed this kind of adaptation. - It feels like they want you to get every measuring spoon you own dirty for ingredients that really do not need such precision. - And yes, most of it needs to be finished in the oven. Summary: If you have the time and like to tinker, great book, because of great results. If you want to have good sure results from your bread machine, look elsewhere.

Getting the most from your bread machine!:
This book goes beyond "add ingredients, push start, eat bread". It contains sections on various bread machines models, flours and grains, starters and how to keep them alive (includes 8 recipes for starters) and shaping techniques to give your bread that bakery look. While most of the recipes are designed for the 'dough' setting there are some 'push-button' breads and some hearty recipes designed to go with your home-made bread. While not an expert baker, this is the book that I have been using to try and bake that 'perfect' loaf of artisan bread.