Bread Matters - Why and How to Make Your Own Andrew Whitley
The title of this book tries, with English understatement, to convey the importance of bread (although I wish the author had left off the awkward subtitle). Andrew Whitley, founder of the organic Village Bakery in Melmerby, in the English county of Cumbria, has written a comprehensive, detailed book on how to make bread; the first 138 pages (out of a total of 372) are dedicated to ingredients; equipment and tools; conversion charts; the mixing and baking processes; and troubleshooting. Whitley is a big advocate of organic ingredients; in chapter six, when he finally starts to give recipes, he writes, 'To avoid endless repetition, I do not preface every ingredient line with the word organic. However, all the recipes have been developed with organic ingredients and I recommend their use throughout.'
Many of the recipes use just a few, simple ingredients: flour, salt, water and yeast but by using different flours and mixing in 'old dough' (leftover, uncooked dough added to give flavour) and 'sponge' (moist dough, fermented overnight; also to give flavour) there's a lot of variation on this staff of life.
There are plenty of options for those who like sweet and flavoured breads: Whitley gives recipes for hot-cross buns, stollen, croissants and calzone. There's also a chapter on gluten-free baking.