Review: Enthusiasm Doesn't Equal Expertise
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 09 2, 2013
I have been baking bread for more than half a century.  Baking your own bread is my #1 all-time way to save big bucks on the grocery bill and I'm always looking for new recipes, so I was delighted to findHomemade Bread Recipes You Want To Know: 20+ Easy To Follow Detailed Bread Recipes With Photos.The book is nicely formatted, includes an interactive Table of Contents listing every recipe and lots of pictures. Author Thomas Miller's enthusiasm for cooking spills over when he writes that he has just recently become the "man in the kitchen" and that his  "love for cooking has grown so much in the past couple of weeks" that he has "decided to share my love and my recipes with the rest of the world."  I do hate to rain on such an enthusiastic parade, but a couple of weeks in the kitchen don't make one an expert bread baker and nothing could be more readily apparent in the pages ofHomemade Bread Recipes You Want To Know: 20+ Easy To Follow Detailed Bread Recipes With Photos. It is, in fact, those very photos that offer proof of his inexperience - big tunnels where there should be none from over proofing, flat loaves from insufficient rising time, no oven spring, damp spots in the middle where loaves have not been baked long enough.  Clearly, Miller still has lots to learn from the likes of Paul Hollywood, George Greenstein & Peter Reinhart.Most of these recipes simply are not ready for prime time in the kitchen.  Many of them call for "flour type 550" or "flour type 1050", neither of which is readily available in the US - not here at Amazon and not at King Arthur Flour either.  He also commonly calls for baking at a temperature of 356F, leading me to believe that most of these recipes started life in metrics.Some recipes give instructions that are completely incorrect.  The first line of instruction for Focaccia Al Formaggio states "Stir the yeast, sugar and salt into 1 cup of the warm water. . . . .  You are activating the yeast and the sugar and salt actually 'feed' the live organism." Uh, NO - salt retards growth of yeast.  British baker extraordinaire Paul Hollywood goes so far as to add the salt and the yeast to different sides of the bowl.Miller provides no discussion whatever of the various types of yeast available, differences in how they are used or even things like how to tell if your dough is sufficiently kneaded or risen.Grandma's $0.02 - Enthusiasm doesn't equal expertise.  Thomas Miller needs to do some learning at the feet of the masters himself before he sets out to attempt to teach others the art of baking bread.Homemade Bread Recipes You Want To Know: 20+ Easy To Follow Detailed Bread Recipes With Photosis full of errors, omissions and incorrect information.Not recommended