I can’t remember when I purchased this book. Or if it was given to me as a gift. And I’ve referenced it every now and then to find a recipe for some sort of bread. But it’s from America’s Test Kitchen. And I’m sure the recipes are all great since they test things out for us. I’m a huge fan of ATK and all their publications. I get their magazines and have access to their website and have many of their books. They really are my go-to when I decide to cook something new. Or to make something again from them that was delicious the first time. They make things very easy and you know the recipes they produce will be delicious and for the most part fool-proof.
I made the decision recently to bake my way through this book. I’m not sure how many recipes are in the book. But there are quite a few and it will be a nice challenge to complete.
The book takes you through many aspects of bread making. They give you a tutorial at the beginning talking about ingredients, equipment and more technical aspects to bread making. Things like hydration, the importance of kneading, proofing, gluten structure, etc. The first portion of the book takes you from mixing the bread ingredients all the way through storing the bread. It is informative and definitely something to read through to understand all the essential points of bread making and why things are done in a particular way.
The book starts you off easy. With some quick breads and some bread that requires little to no kneading. As you progress in the book, recipes get more difficult and with many more steps that you’ll need to plan out.
So the challenge that I’m taking on is to bake all of these recipes in order, document how they turned out and what the issues were along the way. I think I will stick to the main recipe for each bread. Sometimes there are variations you can do for some breads. I can save those for another time. I’ll be making notes in my book as I go and I’ll try to document them here on my blog as well. I don’t have a timeframe as to when I’ll complete this challenge (we also have a kitchen remodel coming up so I’ll have to take some time off for that). I don’t want to stress myself out or anything. This is for fun!
Check out my completed breads here:
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