Bread Head: Baking for the Road Less Traveled

It's easy to imagine an inexperienced baker starting off with Bread Head and still coming back to the book many years later, their confidence and experience making it possible to tackle the book's increasing complexity and ambition as one works from front to back.

Greg Wade of Publican Quality Bread in Chicago, is a passionate baker who understands that the best way to bring other bakers along on his deeply committed journey is to begin by making satisfaction possible. He offers a gentle invitation with recipes that use white flour, active-dry yeast, and chemical leavening; this section also employs simple techniques for quick breads and traditional short crusts.

Wade gradually builds upon this know-how with the addition of whole grains, used in adept combinations, along with sourdough recipes that use levain in combination with store-bought yeast. The required skill level ramps up with each section and culminates with more advanced baking techniques such as live-fire and baking over direct heat, and lamination and enriched sourdoughs.

Wade is clear about his dedication to using local, sustainably grown grains and includes helpful suggestions on sourcing them to produce the likes of a farmhouse sourdough, a peach and cashew loaf, multigrain baguettes, stollen, and even buckwheat canelés and rye phyllo.

Definitely for the adventurous.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.