Rating: 
Summary: As the beneficiary of a home baker...
Review: ...I recommend this book! My fiance has been baking a loaf of bread every weekend since the start of the new year, so I've bought him a few bread baking books. He continues to use The Village Baker most frequently, and says it's his favorite book. Every time he bakes from it, the bread is decidedly unlike store-bought bread (even from the deli). Last night I was lucky enough to eat "Porridge-Method Italian-Style French Bread" with my lasagne - and it was quite a treat. Highly recommended to home bakers - and their tasters!
Rating:
Summary: This is the best artisan bread book I have ever used
Review: As a nearly 30 year home bread baker, I was not expecting to find this fresh new look at breadmaking by the traditional artisans of France, Germany and Italy. But Joe Ortiz's "The Village Baker" is both a joy and a revelation. Here are many easy to follow recipes based on starters and sponges ("poolish" in French). Here you can see, and almost smell, the fresh-baked peasant breads of Europe as they come out of the traditional brick oven. It's all here -- whether you're looking for french pain de campagne, or Italian pane integrale, you need look no further. The Italian ciabatta recipe, which appears thoroughly unlikely to succeed, produces an exceptional flat bread honeycombed with airy holes to soak up sauces, or extra virgin olive oil. Above all, the book conveys a sense of timelessness , and the enduring value of good bread made according to its own timetable. The recipes are clear and easy to follow. I have spent several months happily working my way through this exceptional book -- some surprises but no failures. At least five stars...
Rating:
Summary: This is the best artisan bread book I have ever used
Review: As a nearly 30 year home bread baker, I was not expecting to find this fresh new look at breadmaking by the traditional artisans of France, Germany and Italy. But Joe Ortiz's "The Village Baker" is both a joy and a revelation. Here are many easy to follow recipes based on starters and sponges ("poolish" in French). Here you can see, and almost smell, the fresh-baked peasant breads of Europe as they come out of the traditional brick oven. It's all here -- whether you're looking for french pain de campagne, or Italian pane integrale, you need look no further. The Italian ciabatta recipe, which appears thoroughly unlikely to succeed, produces an exceptional flat bread honeycombed with airy holes to soak up sauces, or extra virgin olive oil. Above all, the book conveys a sense of timelessness , and the enduring value of good bread made according to its own timetable. The recipes are clear and easy to follow. I have spent several months happily working my way through this exceptional book -- some surprises but no failures. At least five stars...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: As an Artisan Bread Baking Instructor, I found Joe Ortiz' book, The Village Baker to be the best book on the market for helping the novice bread baker to understand in plain language the magic of true bread. I have had 35 students use this book so far, and they have all exclaimed it to be the best. The depth of knowledge shows through, without being pretensious, and the breads themselves were crisp, sensual, and tasty, without exception. If you were allowed only one book on the art of true bread this is the one to have.
Rating:
Summary: Worthy backbone to a bread-baker's library
Review: Even with 30 years of bread baking experience behind me, I still learned new and interesting things from Mr. Ortiz. The design and layout of the book are pleasing and logical. It is extremely well written thoughout, and by taking one's time and following all the directions, a beginner should be able to produce very good bread. I've made almost every recipe in the book and for the most part the recipes seem to be accurate, although in a couple of cases I found the doughs a little softer than I thought they ought to be. I encourage you to try some of the less mainstream breads. The porridge breads are all very good, and I can particularly recommend the Pain Meteil and Les Benoitons, (raisin-nut rye rolls.)
Rating:
Summary: Worthy backbone to a bread-baker's library
Review: Even with 30 years of bread baking experience behind me, I still learned new and interesting things from Mr. Ortiz. The design and layout of the book are pleasing and logical. It is extremely well written thoughout, and by taking one's time and following all the directions, a beginner should be able to produce very good bread. I've made almost every recipe in the book and for the most part the recipes seem to be accurate, although in a couple of cases I found the doughs a little softer than I thought they ought to be. I encourage you to try some of the less mainstream breads. The porridge breads are all very good, and I can particularly recommend the Pain Meteil and Les Benoitons, (raisin-nut rye rolls.)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Excellent book. Instructions are easy to follow and all the recipes I tried produced fabulous breads.
Rating: 
Summary: Professional Boulangerie
Review: I give this bread book the lowest possible rating, because it is worthless to the home baker, author comments not withstanding. If you are already a decent bread baker and wish to be a great one, this book is absolutely essential; for the rest of us, forget it. If you have worked in a boulangerie washing pans and weighing out flour and wish to become a journeyman bread baker, or a home baker who knows what a direct method bread is and can make one without a recipe, this book is a must have. It will show you techniques, methods, and philosophies that will make a great bread maker out of a mediocre one. In spite of the faulty instructions, I had no trouble with the breads I tried, and found the recipes to be reliable, even when baking something for the first time. If you already know your way around the bread kitchen and want to take the next step, this book is one of the few I know of that will get you there.
This book is a collection of the bread making techniques the author has learned over the years from small, artisanal boulangerie in France. The author has made the serious mistake of assuming that since these artisanal bakeries make small batches using no fancy or modern equipment, that the home bread baker can duplicate them; nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the recipes in the book require experience and judgment to properly execute.
The main value of this book is as a repository of recipes and methods for high quality and flavorful breads as practiced by hard working bakers laboring away in small, neighborhood boulageries. It is a good antidote to the fluffy, flavorless mass-produced breads you will find in supermarkets both in this country and France. Many bakers have become famous using the recipes in this book, and only a small portion of the recipes have been commercially exploited; in this, there is much potential. Astonishingly, there is a collection of 4 dozen professional, ready to use commercial baking recipes; these are valuable recipes collected from some very famous and very successful boulangeries in France. In fact, most of the recipes in the first part of the book are scaled down versions of these professional bread recipes, which the author has adapted with varying success. Even here, however, the author has erred by not making the ingredient tables consistent; a few are in baker's percentage, but not all, the english and metric amounts are not always equivalent (something the author could easily have fixed by spending a few minutes with a calculator; as is, you have figure it yourself and scribble the correct numbers in the page margins).
One significant problem is that the author starts throwing around important terms, like levain, sourdough, starter, sponge, or poolish, without explaining the meaning of the various terms; indeed, in some cases the author uses these terms incorrectly. An experienced baker will be able to know the difference, but not the typical home cook trying to make bread. The author also commits the ultimate baking sin: measuring flour in cups and not weight, even worse not telling you how that flour is measure. A cup of flour can weigh anything from 3 to 5 ounces, depending on how you measure it. The difference is between great bread and an awful disaster. It also would have been nice to have a recipe listing in the table of contents or chapter headings, as there really are not that many recipes in the book.
It has chapters on ingredients, leavening, procedures, France, Italy, Germany, U.S., professional, and bread sculpture.
Rating:
Summary: After 40 years, I got a loaf of French bread out of my oven
Review: I have to admit that despite 40 years of baking, I've frankly flunked French bread. I can make excellent pannetone, challah, white sandwich bread, spelt bread, wheat, brioche, coffee cake and oatmeal breads. But I have never once gotten a loaf of French bread from any recipe that even dimly resembled what I remembered from living in Europe, let alone the poor substitute in American grocery stores. Well, Mr. Ortiz' book solved that problem for me.I started with his basic French bread recipe. This involves proofing the dry yeast with warm water, then pouring the lot into a pile of flour, either beating or mixing (I use a Kitchenaid, and he has specific instructions for hand, mixer or food processor.) I used ice water (weird, but keeps the dough at 75 degrees F, necessary for the correct build of the gluten.) I threw in the ascorbic acid into the yeast, and the salt into the dough as instructed. I went for more water in the dough as Ortiz recommends if you can handle it. I followed his instructions to the letter, as best I could. MANY hours later (rising took quite a while as the dough is so cool) I threw the boule onto the hot stone in the oven, chucked in a bit of water to make steam on the oven floor (you can do this on a gas oven.) Lo, after 40 minutes, I got a loaf of French bread with a creamy, somewhat gelatinous crumb and a crunchy, crisp crust. I also did use French SAF yeast and a French style flour from a Vermont based baking catalog company. Success! Well, well, well. This book is not strong on German breads, which is a shame. Mr. Ortiz frankly admits he is not a fan of heavy German breads. Well, he must not have eaten the ones we enjoyed in Southern Germany, where bread is considered a diet food and recommended by doctors, if it's whole grain. Ortiz does include a few German breads, some popular Italian ones and the sweet French doughs as well. He also has artisan-bakery level recipes for greater amounts of bread. Nice of him to share. Next I will try the poolish (sponge) rising method and then on to the real challenge, sourdough. Overall, this is the very best bread book I've used, hands down (and sticky with dough, I might add.)
Rating:
Summary: Needs to be edited for clarity
Review: I just finished trying to make San Francisco Sourdough according to this book. I'm not an expert baker, but I've been known to make a fair baguette or two according to good recipes. Throughout this book, the directions are confusing, to say the least. In this recipe's case, directions refer back to the starter recipe, earlier in the book, and are so vague as to be incomprehensible. Although I tried to follow all the instructions as closely as possible, nothing ever rose--no wild yeast came along, even over the time period recommended, with the recommended temperatures and procedures being followed closely. There was no "troubleshooting" section to explain what to do if "x" didn't turn out the way it was supposed to--just paragraphs of instructions that progress inexorably to the description of a perfect conclusion--phrases like "when the dough has risen to twice its volume," without allowance that it may not have. For example, it says to add "all of the starter (about one cup) from the previous step." But I didn't have one cup from the previous step--maybe only half a cup. What to do if that happens? No explanation. To illustrate the typical vagueness of the book, I direct you to a passage about baking stones (copied without alteration from the book): BAKING STONES In some recipes, pizza or bread is baked on a stone in the oven. To use a baking stone, place it on a wire shelf in the oven before preheating it. Loaves that are to be baked on a stone are usually given their final proofing in bannetons or in couches. When such loaves are ready, sprinkle a little cornmeal or flour on a rimless cookie sheet and turn each loaf onto it by inverting the basket. The loaves in couches are either lifted gently or rolled out onto the cookie sheet. The loaf can then be slid right onto the baking stone to bake. If you don't have a baking stone you can always use a metal tray that has been greased lightly or one that has been lined with parchment paper. Let's take a closer look at that paragraph: "When such loaves are ready, sprinkle a little cornmeal or flour on a rimless cookie sheet and turn each loaf onto it by inverting the basket." Inverting what basket? "The loaves in couches are either lifted gently or rolled out onto the cookie sheet." Lifted with what? Your hands? A spatula? "The loaf can then be slid right onto the baking stone to bake." Slid right onto the baking stone while still on the cookie sheet? How is it going to "slide" off the cookie sheet unless a large amount of flour or cornmeal is used? "If you don't have a baking stone you can always use a metal tray that has been greased lightly or one that has been lined with parchment paper." Well, I do have a baking stone, but you still haven't clearly explained how to use it. And what is a metal tray? Aluminum? What is greased? With butter? Oil? This book needs some serious editing and reorganization.
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