bread - Christine Ingram, Jennifer Shapter > Reviews > A book about bread

Author's product rating:   

Degree of Information	High
How easy was it to read / get information from	Very easy
How interesting was the book?	Interesting because I'm interested in that subject
Would you read it again?	Absolutely
Value for money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	lots
Disadvantages:	none

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I bought myself a Bread and bread-baking book by Christine Ingram and Jennie Shafter about a year ago. I bought it from the book club at work cannot remember how much it cost from them but the RRP is £9.99.

This book is not designed for the bread machine but has instructions for making the breads by hand. I am sure you could adapt these recipe quantities to suit your bread maker, I have.

This book is paperback containing bread recopies from all over the world. The book has 250 pages and is divided into sections of bread recipes from different countries, German breads, French breads, Italian breads British breads, Belgium breads, Swiss bread, Spanish bread, Portuguese bread, eastern European and Russian breads, Dutch breads, Jewish breads, American breads, Indian breads, Australian breads, Chinese breads, Japanese breads, breads from Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Mexican bread.

At the front of the book there is a section about grains that are used in bread making and a chapter about Yeasts. A section on bread making equipment.

I have used this book to make several breads The Greek Easter bread Tsoureki the dough flavoured with orange and spices. This is an alternative to hot cross buns. We had this bread on our Greek Easter hols one year and when I made this bread it brought back memories of that holiday.

There are recipes for chapattis poppadoms and Naan breads great to go with that curry.
There is a recipe for a lardy cake and other regional breads from England.
There are some tasty French bread recipies, a recipie for a polish rye bread.
With each bread recipe are a few words about the breads giving history and customs. I find it interesting how there are so many variations of breads from different regions.
I have used recipes from this book at work when we are talking about different countries.
Making bread with children is good fun and educational, using different flours and watching the yeast make the bread rise. I remember making hot cross buns with my class of 7 year olds thirty years ago.

The recipes are clearly written and easy to follow. There are plenty of coloured illustrations some full-page pictures of bread and some smaller illustrations of the baking process.

These recipes are described for making without a bread machine but there is a chapter about converting the recipes for use in a bread machine it is easy.
Using a bread machine makes bread making easy and time saving, but making and kneading the dough by hand is such a nice thing to do I might just make some bread later.
Thanks for reading, have fun making bread, Mary