Rating: 
Summary: This book moved my baking to a whole new level
Review: I've been an amateur but devoted bread baker for 30 years, and thought I was making about the best bread I could with an ordinary home oven. Glezer's book, however, took my baking to an entirely new level. I checked it out of the local library so many times that the librarian finally gently suggested I should just buy the book--good advice. The Semolina bread from Tom Cat Bakery might be the best bread I've ever baked, but everything in the book that I've tried so far has been outstanding. I don't think this is a book for absolute beginners, but with a little careful attention, just about anyone using this book could turn out spectacular breads.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful book with occasional glitches
Review: I've been baking bread for fun for about 20 years, and spent
a wonderful vacation week baking various recipes from this book.The strength of the book is that the recipes almost all produce
an interesting bread -- one you'd want to sample in a bread store
just to see how it tasted. Many recipes, such as the roasted
garlic bread and the potato pizza are outstanding. The one nuisance is that, for all its focus on precise
measurements (one recipe calls for 1 and 3/4 cups water plus
three tablespoon) often the proportions are a little off (even
if you weigh carefully). Also, the rising instructions often
focus on elapsed time and don't describe well enough how the
dough should look.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Baking!
Review: Mrs. Glezer has hit new culinary heights with her first cookbook. "Artisan Baking" takes bread on a rising journey throughout America, capturing wonderful baking secrets from carefully selected cities. The book contains beautiful pictures, and fun, easy-to-follow recipes. I would highly recommend this book. Praise Mrs. Glezer and her baking genius!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Baking!
Review: Mrs. Glezer has hit new culinary heights with her first cookbook. "Artisan Baking" takes bread on a rising journey throughout America, capturing wonderful baking secrets from carefully selected cities. The book contains beautiful pictures, and fun, easy-to-follow recipes. I would highly recommend this book. Praise Mrs. Glezer and her baking genius!
Rating:
Summary: An important book in the artisan's arsenal
Review: No one book stands out as the definitive manual for artisan bread baking, but this is definitely one to go alongside the other classics on your bookshelf: "Crust and Crumb," "The Village Baker," "Breads of LaBrea," "Bread Alone," etc. For me, Steve Sullivan's recipe for his rustic baguette was worth the price of the book. Anyone who has been to Acme and tasted one of those baguettes will attest, it doesn't get much better. I took my family there for breakfast while on vacation, and for as much bread as they have tasted in my kitchen, they knew they were experiencing something special. And, with the exception of his chapter in the Chez Panise cookbook, Steve doesn't appear to make his recipes known. Ms Glezer's instructions are a little confusing, but I figured it out and had great results the first time out. Now, on to some of those other recipes.
Rating:
Summary: An important book in the artisan's arsenal
Review: No one book stands out as the definitive manual for artisan bread baking, but this is definitely one to go alongside the other classics on your bookshelf: "Crust and Crumb," "The Village Baker," "Breads of LaBrea," "Bread Alone," etc. For me, Steve Sullivan's recipe for his rustic baguette was worth the price of the book. Anyone who has been to Acme and tasted one of those baguettes will attest, it doesn't get much better. I took my family there for breakfast while on vacation, and for as much bread as they have tasted in my kitchen, they knew they were experiencing something special. And, with the exception of his chapter in the Chez Panise cookbook, Steve doesn't appear to make his recipes known. Ms Glezer's instructions are a little confusing, but I figured it out and had great results the first time out. Now, on to some of those other recipes.
Rating: 
Summary: Special Breads
Review: The first task of this book is defining the "artisan" bread. The author has a little trouble pining it down, but it means high quality bread made by hand in small batches at modest, neighborhood bakeries, some of whom have gained international reputations. I live in the San Francisco bay area, one of the homes of this new trend, so I was looking forward to this book. Sadly, this book tries to be four different things at the same time, and is not particularly good at any of them. The most charitable thing I can think of to say about this book is that it is an interesting introduction to the subject of artisan breads. The first intended audience is the beginning bread baker. These beginning recipes are identified as such, but there is not enough information for the uninitiated to actually make these recipes. The second audience is the experienced baker, and this is the most successful one. Everyone who has baked bread will find an interesting recipe that is within his ability. I found several that I was intrigued by and tried. Unfortunately, the recipes in this book are not that complete. On an interesting page, the author describes 5 different pre-ferments, but does not give exact recipes for them, or the most appropriate recipes to use them in. When I tried some of the recipes in summer, many of the doughs fermented faster than the times given in the recipes and over-proofed (I halted fermentation before it happened, and this may have affected the flavor, but what I got was very good). This may not necessarily be a fatal flaw, but only an experienced baker can make them work under typical and variable home conditions. On the positive side, the author is an experienced baker and educator, and has done a good job of translating professional recipes into ones suitable for the home. The third is as a coffee table book. The format is a large 9x12, but there are not enough pictures for this book to qualify as such, and many of the pictures included are neither interesting nor informative. The last is an account of the best recipes and bakers the author found while traveling across America. The ones included are interesting enough, but the number of people/places/types covered is surprising small. The book has the following chapters: Baking Basics, Starting With Flour (simpler, plain breads suitable for beginners; some recipes are based on fermented poolish), Crafting Bread (fermented, sourdough-type breads), Specialty Breads (rye, pizza, pandoro, bialy, etc.), The Baking Life (holiday breads, along with some interesting accounts of baking as a vocation), and miscellaneous references.
Rating:
Summary: You don't have to be in the trade!
Review: The homebaker can shop for the same flours which are available to the trade, in order to bake artesian breads, and get them in small amounts, altho' it seems to have been a well kept secret not listed in the Sources section of the baking books.
To me, it was like a miracle to find heartlandmill.com. They are a small farm in Marienthal, Kansas and will ship the grains or special baker's flours in whatever small amounts the home baker wishes to order. Their prices don't have a lot of overhead built in and to top it off their products are organic! It is a joy to shop from them.
To get the special flours is no big deal, you don't have to be in the trade!
You can do the recipes in all the fabulous books on artesian baking: Artesian Baking by Maggie Glezer, Crust and Crumb and The Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart, Nancy Silverton's Breads from the LaBrea Bakery, Bread Alone by Daniel Leader,..... without struggling or compromising.
Rating:
Summary: excellent cookbook
Review: This is the best cookbook I have ever read. Be warned, once you make a few loaves from this book you will never be able to go back to eating Wonder bread again and will scoff and imposter artisan breads.
Rating:
Summary: excellent cookbook
Review: This is the best cookbook I have ever read. Be warned, once you make a few loaves from this book you will never be able to go back to eating Wonder bread again and will scoff and imposter artisan breads.
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