Ken Forkish

It might seem like cheating for me to include a cookbook in my “books read this year” list, but this isn’t a book of recipes so much as a book about how to bake bread that also includes recipes. It’s packed with details while still being easy to follow and it’s suitable for any skill level, so I can see why it’s a “bread bible” for so many people. I’ve also been extremely happy with the bread I’ve made with its guidance. (As of this review, I’ve only made the white show more bread with poolish, but I did it twice and it turned out perfectly both times.)

I first learned how to bake bread from my mom, but I’ve had to unlearn just about all of her techniques. (For one thing, you really do need to measure by weight instead of volume, so even though Ken includes volume measurements in the book, please spring for a digital scale like he recommends!) I also make a pretty damn good soft sandwich bread using a straight dough that takes about 4 hours to be ready from start to finish, but this book is really going to take my bread game to a new level. I had always been too intimidated by the technical details of using pre-ferments and measuring the dough’s temperature, but this book breaks everything down into layperson-accessible steps and anticipates a lot of the problems you might encounter.

It’s all great! Looking forward to making more and more of the recipes and coming up with one I can call my own. show less

I received a galley of this book via NetGalley.

Straight up: I want to buy this book. I’ve read many baking books that discuss how to cultivate and utilize sourdough starters, and this is the least intimidating, most friendly of the lot. Every recipe is fully illustrated with detailed instructions led by avatars of baker Ken Forkish and comic book artist Sarah Becan. The one downside is that the book doesn’t include many recipes, but several variations are included. Really, this book show more provides an accessible foundation to perfect sourdough techniques and innovate from there. show less

Love the concept and art in this book. Will this be the book that finally sets aside my fear of making and mucking-up yeast breads?

Alas, no.

This book reinforced how temperamental yeast breads are. If anything, I'm more overwhelmed and less likely to try my hand at yeast bread making. I'll stick with quick breads.

But I did enjoy the book.

I . . . wanted to love this. I love baking and I've made lots of bread before, but of relatively limited varieties; I thought this would be fun to perhaps branch out, or just find some new recipes. Also the idea of the images sounded cool! And potentially quite helpful!

The book felt weirdly suspended between 'very basic beginner introduction' (not a bad thing) and 'did not walk it back enough from professional bread baking', and rather than being a happy medium, it landed somewhere around . show more . . very tediously specific (and probably intimidating, especially for a real beginner!) descriptions for complex/higher level things. Also, among other things, I've never known a home baker who has large, clear, size-marked dough tubs just sitting around, I don't think - I certainly haven't myself. But they're expected for every recipe. I also don't have a proofing basket, which has never been an issue for baking for me. . .

Also, I don't have the energy or time (or mouths to feed, perhaps) to maintain a sourdough starter and use it regularly; I don't want to keep one up with feeding and maintenance every week for the rare occasions I might use it. That rules out . . . most of the recipes in the book, for me, as they are geared towards using a levain. (Though, in fairness, there are adjustments and so on to do without. Still, it very much leans in that direction.)

The artist's passion for the subject comes through, and some of the illustrations might be helpful (in others, the art is not close enough to reality to be a very helpful reference), but the text is dry and repetitive, occasionally comes off as a bit condescending (at least to me); the art is also repetitive in many places, though perhaps understandably as the same process is shown again and again with exactly the same points. (A few times I legitimately wondered if I'd accidentally flipped back to an earlier page; that identically repetitive.)

Rather than offer a fun, basic grounding with images to go off of, the book feels like it makes what is a fun thing sound like tedium, drudgery, and maybe too complicated to want to try! (Also, personally, in a book aimed at beginners I'd have chosen at least a couple of quick recipes - many of these take hours, if not days, and while it's of course not active time - mostly the dough sits and does things on its own - that can be intimidating for someone just trying it out, or difficult to manage.)

I'm confident in my baking and am not put off in general . . . but I don't think I'll be trying any of the recipes. Then again, maybe I would, if they weren't all so dependent on levain. show less