The Tassajara Bread Book

the only bread book i've ever owned and the only baking book i ever use. have had to make small modifications to the recipes over the years (taking out the dry milk, and modifying rise times because I live in england and not california) but always produces hearty, wholesome, real food that brings me back in connection with the world.

only word of warning is that this doesn't make the fluffy light white bread or cracky desserts that we're used to in the 21st century, so if you're seeking that you may want a different book!

I should probably branch out at some point, but this is almost the only book I've ever referred to in more than seven years of bread baking. I occasionally dip into Crescent Dragonwagon's Soup and Bread Book because of its fantastic cornbread recipe, but Tassajara is the one I keep returning to. Brown's basic yeasted bread recipe produces an incredibly full, satisfying loaf, and his stories about baking for the Tassajara monastery make for good reading while the dough rises. This is a truly essential cookbook.

This small beige book, first published in 1970 (my edition is the fifteenth printing of 1975, indicating its popularity) would not shout out amongst the glossy offerings in the bookshop. It doesn't need to , though as its reputation does the work. It revolutionised my baking. Ignore the recipes that talk about smooth, silky dough - that is likely to be too dry. Tassajara tells you not to be afraid of stickiness. This book was produced by the bakery at the heart of the Tassajara Zen community in Berkeley, California. Edward Espe Brown started the famous Green's Restaurant in California and is still a Zen teacher.

I see that the centre is still going but I never went except via this book. Its a legacy from my own hippie commune days when cooked all my own food including bread. Back in the 70's in Bristol if you wanted to eat natural (organic was not invented!) especially bread you have very little choice as supermarkets did white sliced and bakers did tin loaves if you could find a baker. You had to know about certain Italian, Jewish or Asian shops to get access to rarities such as green peppers, fresh chillies, chickpea dips, olive oil smoked sausages etc. The 70's were a food disaster so before condemning supermarkets think how they have opened the access to food that 30 years ago was impossible for many to source.

I can remember working with show more some disturbed teenagers in a residential unit in 1979 getting then to bake bread using the basic sponge method and getting some of the anger out for them by the kneading.

Its part of life not lived where I would grow my own food and make my own bread and have friends round to long Sunday lunches in the Aga warmed kitchen. Not sure if I want to examine why instead I am cataloguing books and looking forward to the 3 hours of Star trek on Sky. And dinner is what the local take away has on special show less

This is the first cookbook I ever owned. I have semi-regularly been baking bread in the style of this book for over thirty years. The basic technique uses a sponge but can be completed in less than a day. The basic formula is for a whole-wheat bread but many other formulas are provided, using a variety of common and not so common grains. There are even a couple of recipes for unleavened loaf breads which I attempted with fairly good results when I was young and adventurous.

Back before I started college I worked as all day babysitter for a family one summer. The mother made their bread, and told me this was the best book to learn from. I'm not sure I ever made anything except basic bread from it, but it does have very good directions for that first loaf of bread, and encourages experimentation.

And now I find myself telling my son that this is the book he needs to learn how to bake bread.

An interesting book to read, but I found some flaws in executing the recipies. The bread makes fine doorstops.