Jean Cazals

The notion of no-knead bread has become commonplace in the last few years - The smell and flavor of fresh bread with minimal effort. After several failures at 'real' bread making, no-knead provided a magical shortcut for this tricky, humiliating, process. Several years later I gave kneading another chance, inspired by a video of Richard Bertinet athletically slapping the dough on his work surface and conjuring four perfect baguettes. Only kneaded bread can be shaped this way, so I mixed the show more four ingredients to his specification (flour, water, salt, and yeast) blundered through his simplified process, and removed my own perfect baguettes from the oven. Compared to the slightly cakey texture of no-knead bread, these were perfectly chewy with nice, rustic-looking holes. "Lucky," I thought, because I was no idiot, and I'd thumbed through several bread books that dedicate significant space to the delicate chemical balance that nurtures the yeast without killing it. But I've not failed with that recipe since. The kneading process is truly enjoyable, only takes about 5 minutes if using bread flour, and one can have an uncompromised loaf of the good stuff in less than three hours with only about 20 minutes of actual work. I have yet to explore all the variations on that basic loaf that this book provides, but there have been no false notes yet; it has restored my confidence as a baker. show less

This is a very pretty book. The recipes are interesting and those that I've tried are pretty tasty. I like that measurements are given in weights as well as volumes in order to be more precise.

Beautiful book with many innovative ideas. I love Bertinet's kneading method.

I much prefer Richard's way of working the dough. Somehow I never got along with kneading but I love this way, that is new to me. I happened to mention the book on my blog and Jo Bertinet commented and gave me great advice to use a floured linen tea towel to prove the dough on, so that it doesn't stick and thus make it difficult to transfer to your baking stone or tray.
I also bought one of the special scrapers but find a good silicone spatula works quite well - but the scraper is better for show more cutting amounts off the dough. show less