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Wild Fermentation

by David Whitehouse
Wild Fermentation

Not a baking book, per se, but one which I’ve found interesting and thought-provoking enough to want to see it included here, and to encourage you to look at and hopefully buy. The chapters most immediately relevant to a baker are those on breads & pancakes, and on fermented grain “porridges”. In the former, the [...]

Australia: Melbourne: The Green Grocer

by David Whitehouse
Australia: Melbourne: The Green Grocer

On past trips to Melbourne, Dan’s been delighted to hold bread making classes and other events at The Green Grocer, an outstanding organic cafe, food and wine retailer and cookery school in North Fitzroy, in the heart of the ‘good bread belt’ – Dench Bakers, Loafer Bread and Natural Tucker are all just around the [...]

Opening up the crumb

by Dan Lepard
Opening up the crumb

Combining techniques in the commercial bakery to create holes, lightness and a majestic slice Remember: baking is not a set of separate processes, but rather one single process defined by different stages. Thus, change any part and you will cause changes in every subsequent stage, from mixing to baking. Assess each of the ideas presented [...]

Crisp, golden, light, salty & oily

by Dan Lepard
Crisp, golden, light, salty & oily

Making a Focaccia Genovese in a commercial bakery (originally published in British Baker) Foccacia has a home, in Italy, and a birthplace in the town of Genoa. That’s what Italians from Genoa tell me. But then as every man, woman and child of Italian extraction seems to have a slightly different take on their homeland’s [...]

Australia: Melbourne: The Essential Ingredient

by Dan Lepard
Australia: Melbourne: The Essential Ingredient

The Essential Ingredient in Melbourne’s Prahran Market is more than just a retailer, it’s a place which really celebrates the joy to be found in cooking. Under one roof, you’ll find not only an outstanding selection of cookware, cookbooks and ingredients, but also a cookery school which is really well-equipped and which offers an interesting [...]

Australia: Melbourne

by Dan Lepard
Australia: Melbourne

It was after one of my regular trips to Melbourne, promoting my book The Handmade Loaf, teaching classes and meeting local bakers. To be truthful, I returned rather depressed about the plateau we’d reached in the UK – some fine baking here, but little that’s remarkable. We must raise our game, and of course we [...]

A baguette by any other name……

by Dan Lepard
A baguette by any other name……

…would smell as sweet. Recipes and tricks for improving your sticks (Originally published in British Baker) Recipes for the perfect baguette are probably as numerous as bakeries in France, and each baker appears to claim a secret ingredient or technique that makes him the star boulanger. But do they have anything in common? Well, flour [...]

Le Pain – l’envers du décor

by Dan Lepard
Le Pain – l’envers du décor

Books written specifically for the working baker are somewhat hard to come by. Publishers are in the book selling business, and over the past few decades there just weren’t that many bakers to sell books to. However, that has changed and we’re starting to see publishers who recognise a growing market for artisan baking books, [...]

Artisan Baking Across America

by Dan Lepard
Artisan Baking Across America

Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking Across America is a book I have recommended more than many others. It’s the one that working bakers so often talk about, telling me ‘I really like that book’. A vibrant and honest account of contemporary bread baking in North America, it also helps to demonstrate that traditions can be re-established, [...]

A pressing time in Cambridge

by Dan Lepard
A pressing time in Cambridge

Apple juice, champagne and a wood-fired oven, with Jack Lang and Jill Grey.
The aims of the home baker are varied. For some, the