Bread Illustrated: A Step-By-Step Guide to Achieving Bakery-Quality Results at Home by America’s Test Kitchen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though I started this book nearly a year ago, I haven’t made any of the recipes yet. This is mostly because I didn’t get a stand mixer until late last year. That said, I’m very confident I’m going to really enjoy this book. Why? Well, I’ve made recipes from Dinner Illustrated and the multiple pictures is VERY helpful when you’re trying to a new cooking skill. Second, I’ve made their bread recipes from their magazines and other books and they’ve often been really awesome (with only a few misfires – and those could have been chef error). Tonight, for example, I made their recipe for North Carolina Cheese Bread from Cook’s Country June/July 2017 and it was a huge hit with both myself and the wife (and she will NOT hesitate to tell me I’ve “ruined her dinner” if the food isn’t up to par for her). Like most of ATK’s topic-based cookbooks, the intro section is VERY comprehensive and has everything you need to know to start baking so that you have a one-stop shop to learning how to bake bread. Often the same cannot be said of most cookbooks which assume some domain knowledge. I’ve used some of the intro section from this book when baking bread and biscuits from other recipes.

If you’ve always wanted to make your own bread, but were intimidated at the prospect, I highly recommend.

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