• Thredbende on September 26, 2011

  Lavash Crackers were wonderful (page 178). I made a double batch and sold out at a neighborhood potluck. I had a brain partly cloudy (not as spectacular as a brain storm) and used my KitchenAid pasta rollers to roll out the dough. I squeezed it down to the smallest "Paper Thin" instructions, which was the #8 setting on my pasta roller, starting at #1 and handling it like pasta dough. I also found that I needed to use a fair amount of sprayed water to glue the seasoning onto the lavash before seasoning after I had gotten it onto the parchment paper. I didn't score the pieces but sprinkled a bit of something different onto each ribbon of dough. My diners liked a tiny bit of kosher salt on them, and Penzeys smoked paprika was a hit. As was the cumen seed and coarsely ground pepper. I served it in a large glass compote with the sharp edges of the broken lavash up. Try this recipe. I can't report how well it keeps because it done gone away.

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Cinnamon buns and sticky buns

  • mirage on January 16, 2010

    Use the white fondant glaze but DO NOT use the lemon extract!!!

  • smtucker on April 01, 2012

    Husband loves these, but the kid prefers the version from Flour - Chang. These are more bread-like.

  • Zosia on December 26, 2019

    This is my go-to recipe for cinnamon bun dough (I use a different filling with more cinnamon and a cream cheese glaze). Of the variations I've tried, my favourite is made with buttermilk, unbleached AP flour, butter, and vanilla in place of lemon flavour. It always bakes up tender and fluffy and has good flavour.

• White bread: variation 1

  • mirage on January 16, 2010

    Made wonderful rolls. Use leaf lard.

  • mamacrumbcake on July 14, 2015

    This has just become our family's favorite everyday bread--replacing a recipe we had used for years. It is delicious. It stays fresh for few days, makes perfect toast, and is nice for sandwiches. It is firm enough to slice without being squashed, yet is is soft but not airy, gummy, or mushy. Just perfect.

  • Susan.D on July 17, 2018

    I love this recipe - it goes together so easily. Chef Reinhart's instructions on how to test using the "windowpane", as well as how to form loaves or rolls are clear, easy-to-follow, and give excellent results.

• White bread: variation 2

  • mirage on January 16, 2010

    Too sweet.

  • smtucker on April 01, 2012

    Our house hamburger rolls. Really delicious. Only use 1 tbl of sugar if you don't want a sweet bread. Pantry Ingredients: Bread Flour Egg Butter or oil salt sugar

  • anya_sf on May 23, 2019

    I made hamburger buns. I had no trouble with the dough (using buttermilk and shortening), although I did have to add extra flour. The dough took a really long time to rise, but my kitchen may have been too cold. As directed, I shaped the dough into rounds, let them rest, then "pressed down gently". However, the buns were too tall and not wide enough. Next time I'd make them larger (4 oz instead of 3 oz) and flatten them more. They tasted great.

  • senzler on May 30, 2022

    Have made hamburger buns and sandwich bread with this recipe. Both were great esp. hamburger buns. I might like the Bouchon Bakery Pullman loaf a bit more for sandwich bread.

• Bagels

  • smtucker on April 01, 2012

    This bagel recipe is brilliant! Reminds me of childhood in NYC. Make the ferment/sponge with Sir Lancelot Hi-Gluten, then the dough with Bread Flour. Reduces the cost a bit. Can leave the shaped bagels on a sheet pan for up to three days in the fridge before cooking. Our favorite toppings are sesame, salt and garlic, and onion.

  • sosayi on April 12, 2020

    Excellent Easter treat. Used bread flour, malt powder, the hole poke method, and lowered the heat by 25 degrees as I used my convection setting. I would make again, for sure.

  • anya_sf on May 13, 2019

    I used bread flour and malt syrup and used the poke-a-hole-in-the-middle shaping method. I had no issues and the bagels turned out great. Although the bagels were plenty chewy, next time I would try to get high-gluten flour to see if I notice a difference.

  • dprostrollo on December 27, 2018

    These were GREAT. Used Allinson Extra Strong Bread Flour and topped with Everything seasoning from Milk Bar Life.

  • senzler on March 14, 2022

    These bagels were time consuming but amazing

• Marbled rye bread

  • smtucker on April 01, 2012

    This bread was good, but not great. Next time try adding some of the "deli flavor" from King Arthur's Flour.

• Multigrain bread extraordinaire

  • smtucker on October 06, 2019

    For soaker, I used the suggested corn, oats and wheat bran. Used some pre-cooked sticky rice. Needed about 1/4 cup additional flour to get the proper hydration level. Rolled out and made a cinnamon swirl bread using the cinnamon sugar percentages from the Cinnamon Roll formula. Excellent bread. Going into our rotation.

  • chocchic on November 11, 2013

    This is THE recipe that inspired me to buy the cookbook and return to bread baking. this bread makes such delicious toast I make a loaf almost every week.

  • twarner on November 21, 2021

    I use Bob's RED Mill multigrain cereal for the soaker. Delicious and easy. Approx 1/3 cup

  • anya_sf on May 28, 2018

    For the soaker, I used corn, malted wheat flakes, millet, flax seed, and wheat bran, perhaps a bit more total than the recipe calls for. This bread was easy to make and turned out perfectly. It had great flavor and a nice chew and made delicious toast. I would definitely make this again, and next time I'd like to try adding some whole wheat flour.

  • katiesue28 on February 02, 2023

    This took longer me longer than the noted 12 minutes of kneading to pass the "windowpane test", but the bread turned out wonderful and tastes delicious! Definitely will be on repeat.

  • Debraj76 on May 18, 2018

    Our go-to sandwich bread! It’s excellent, with a pillowy soft crumb. I usually use quinoa.

• Pain à l'ancienne

  • smtucker on April 01, 2012

    Making this bread has changed our lives. How such a wet dough can turn into such a wonderful baguette is a mystery, but wow!

  • shamby on August 05, 2013

    This bread is amazing and quite easy.

• Pâte fermentée

  • smtucker on November 25, 2018

    page 111, in anniversary edition

  • smtucker on November 25, 2018

    used for: French Bread, page 175; Kaiser Rolls, page 182; Pain de Campagne, page 203; Pane Siciliano, page 207; Vienna Bread, page 280

• Poolish focaccia

  • smtucker on May 02, 2017

    Wow! This formula is a total winner. Made for a Pizza focaccia and it was amazing! Worth the extra fussiness. https://www.hungryonion.org/t/whats-for-dinner-21-05-2017-garden-banquet-edition/9392/5

  • JuneHawk on June 15, 2020

    This focaccia takes a long time to make but it is out of the this world delicious, especially if you use flavored olive oil (and why wouldn't you?). It's amazing on its own and just as good stuffed with prosciutto as a sandwich the next day. It does make a lot of focaccia, so in the future I'll halve the recipe and bake in a quarter sheet pan.

  • Rradishes on May 16, 2022

    Made this twice, both times great results. Poolish version can be made in one day (poolish time ~3 hrs) or overnight. I reduced the amount of oil for both the baking sheet and just use some sea salt for pre-bake topping, at it was perfect. 2tbsp for the baking sheet resulted in too oily bread for my taste, just used enough oil to coat the parchment.

• Challah

  • mfto on December 26, 2011

    I made this to serve with Christmas dinner. The year before I had used another recipe. If you are not a pro, be sure you have a dough scraper because the dough is very sticky and Reinhart has you do most of the kneading by hand. I ended up with 2 very large loaves. I froze the baked bread following his directions which worked fine. After defrosting, he suggests reheating the bread in the oven. I did this but if I make it again, I prefer the bread at room temp.

• Corn bread

  • todoom on September 17, 2011

    online link: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Buttermilk-Corn-Bread-with-Bacon-102516

  • anya_sf on November 08, 2018

    I made 1/2 recipe in an 8"x8" pan. I only had time to soak the (medium-grind) cornmeal for 7 hours, but it was enough. I reduced the sugar by a tablespoon and would maybe reduce by another tablespoon next time, as we don't like it too sweet and the corn kernels were quite sweet. I couldn't believe how moist it turned out with hardly any butter (although of course there was the bacon). Delicious!

  • Paula_W on April 07, 2017

    My husband makes this and it is the best cornbread I've ever had

  • patioweather on October 02, 2022

    This is an extravagant recipe. It's more work than regular cornbread, but it's amazing.

• Kaiser rolls

  • twoyolks on May 28, 2014

    The kaiser rolls had a fine flavor but they were too chewy.

  • anya_sf on September 13, 2022

    I totally goofed and added a full recipe (468 g) of pate fermentee instead of just 227 g. I had to add extra flour while kneading, but still didn't realize my mistake until I started portioning the dough and got 8 extra large rolls. I didn't top them with seeds, but since they rise on cornmeal and get flipped over, the tops got some texture from that. The rolls baked up nicely with perfect thin, crisp crusts, good texture and flavor.

• Ciabatta, biga version

  • twoyolks on November 29, 2016

    The flavor of the ciabatta was very good but the crumb wasn't as light and airy as a ciabatta should be.

• Ciabatta, poolish version

  • twoyolks on November 17, 2013

    The texture of the bread was perfect. However, there wasn't a lot of flavor from the bread.

• Tuscan bread

  • twoyolks on December 16, 2014

    I really miss the salt in Tuscan bread. This bread also had a texture that was reminiscent of sandwich bread.

  • Zosia on January 23, 2021

    This bread, which is intentionally made without salt, is soft, yet chewy and surprisingly sweet. But it’s clearly meant to be eaten with highly flavoured foods, or at least a sprinkle of salt.

• Cranberry-walnut celebration bread

  • PirateJeni on November 25, 2012

    This is excellent although I found the orange to be overpowering. Cut back on it.

  • shamby on August 05, 2013

    This bread is beautiful and delicious. It makes a wonderful contribution to a holiday dinner. It also makes wonderful toast - but watch it carefully, as it burns quickly.

• Vienna bread

  • shamby on August 05, 2013

    The Dutch crumb is fabulous on this bread. It is well worth the effort.

• English muffins

  • JuneHawk on June 15, 2020

    These muffins are delicious and easy to prepare. After making them a couple of times on a skillet on the stovetop, I decided to buy an electric griddle to make the process easier. The only downside, which does not bother me much, is that the crumb doesn't have many nooks and crannies like people might expect in English muffins. I can live with that.

  • meginyeg on June 11, 2021

    These were easy to make. Not as craggy as other recipes but flavor is good. Much better than store bought.

  • anya_sf on November 15, 2018

    These muffins are cooked on both the griddle and in the oven, providing reassurance that they will cook through without burning. They are easy to shape with no rings needed. The flavor was spot on. The crumb was less craggy and more closed than I would have preferred, but in hindsight, I probably should have added extra liquid. I will definitely make these again.

• Stollen

  • Zosia on January 23, 2021

    The bread wasn’t overly sweet, depending almost exclusively on the fruit to provide the sugar, and the textural contrast of the crunchy almonds was very nice. The bread was also very easy to make with minimal hands on time and average fermentation and proofing times. It was delicious!

• Italian bread

  • MmeFleiss on April 02, 2020

    This is my 6-yr-old’s new favorite bread and he gets quite upset when I make any other bread. Good, mild-tasting bread with a softer crust.

  • anya_sf on August 23, 2020

    Amazingly like supermarket Italian bread, except so much better. I didn't have malt and opted to bake the loaves on the pan to avoid baking peel disasters. Medium crumb, soft, spongy texture, not too crusty. Nice dipped in olive oil and will make great garlic bread.

• Focaccia

  • e_ballad on October 22, 2016

    Best focaccia I've ever eaten... can't believe it came out of my oven. Instructions seem quite complex at first (4 pages!), but it's actually just really detailed rather than complicated. Needs plenty of preparation time: almost 3hrs, then refrigerate overnight, then room temp 3hrs before cooking, then only 15mins to cook. Totally worth it.

  • anya_sf on May 17, 2020

    I used bread flour and 1/2 cup herb oil (basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano). This recipe takes a while, but there's not too much hands-on work and no steps are difficult. The dough developed some large bubbles while rising, so the oil pooled in places and didn't get fully absorbed upon baking. After 20 minutes in the oven, I feared it was too dark, but it was actually perfect. The focaccia was delicious, if a bit oily - but our favorite bakery focaccia is also rather oily - I think that's what makes it so good. Next time I might decrease the oil, but then I'd want proportionately more herbs and salt on top.

• Pizza-style focaccia

  • e_ballad on October 22, 2016

    Requires plenty of preparation time: 3hrs, then refrigerate overnight, then room temp for 3hrs, then 15mins cooking.

• Casatiello

  • anya_sf on May 26, 2018

    This bread was easy to make and thankfully could be made in a single day. I used buttermilk in the sponge and reduced the butter to 4 ounces, which seemed like just the right richness, and I didn't need to add extra liquid. I used dry salami and a local cheese called Estero Gold, which is sort of like aged jack/provolone. The cheese isn't particularly melty, being drier, so it disappeared into the bread, but the flavor was definitely there. I believe the cheese measurement (3/4 cup) doesn't match the weight (6 ounces - think it should be 3 ounces). I probably added 4 ounces of cheese. We really enjoyed this bread!

• Light wheat bread

  • anya_sf on July 08, 2021

    The dough took longer to knead and pass the windowpane test. It was only slightly tacky and didn't need an oil slick to shape. I think the wrong pan size is called for. I used a 9"x5" pan and the loaf already reached the top of the pan before proofing. The bread was just as described: tasty, soft, with a mild wheat flavor.

• Pain de campagne

  • anya_sf on February 18, 2020

    This recipe makes 3 small loaves and took me 6.5 hours on baking day, as the loaves needed longer to rise, and I couldn't bake all 3 loaves at once. I made one pain d'epi, baked on a sheet pan, and 2 boules, baked directly on the baking stone (well, on parchment, as that's the only way I could safely transfer them to the stone). The whole transfer/steam/spray process was rather nerve-racking for a novice bread baker like me, and I initially forgot to turn down the temperature for the boules, so the bottoms burned a bit. Nevertheless, the breads turned out great, with a crisp crust and medium, airy crumb.

• Potato rosemary bread

  • anya_sf on November 30, 2022

    Delicious, soft-textured bread. Leftover mashed potatoes (with added butter and milk) worked well here. I skipped the garlic.

• Pumpernickel bread

  • anya_sf on November 11, 2021

    After 8 hrs at (rather cool) room temp, my starter wasn't very bubbly, but I refrigerated it anyway. The dough took quite a long time to rise. My barm may not have been super active either. I omitted the caramel color but did use the bread crumbs. I made a single loaf in a pan and let the shaped dough rose 2 hours, at which point it had risen quite a bit and was just over the rim, but not 1" over, but I needed to bake it. Unfortunately, there was no oven spring, so the final bread was pretty short. Nevertheless, the texture and flavor were excellent. I will try this again, allowing more proofing time, and perhaps making a round loaf instead.

• Ciabatta with cheese (Ciabatta al formaggio)

  • anya_sf on May 13, 2018

    For me, this recipe had both too many instructions and not enough - e,g,, the cheese variation says to fold in the cheese at the stretch-and-fold turns as if the dough has already been portioned, yet the master recipe has the turns prior to dividing the dough. I made the poolish version; the dough was fairly easy to mix. I ended up adding the cheese when I shaped the individual loaves, folding them twice instead of once. I placed them on a sheet pan to rise and did not attempt to turn them over. They rose so much that I couldn't bake them all at once, so I removed 2 loaves to a sheet of parchment on a peel and transferred them (still on the parchment) to the baking stone to bake. I added hot water to the steam pan, but skipped spraying the oven later. They ballooned up a lot and ended up rather misshapen. Still, they were delicious; the cheese pockets were the best part, so I'd try to add more next time (I used aged jack and mozzarella).

• Cinnamon raisin bagels

  • anya_sf on March 12, 2023

    Like the basic bagel recipe in this book, these also had great flavor and texture. I had to add a little extra flour as the rinsed raisins added moisture. Skipped the cinnamon-sugar crust. There were a lot of raisins; I'd consider using less next time (and I love raisins).

• Cinnamon raisin walnut bread

  • anya_sf on May 12, 2018

    I just made 1 loaf. I used about 1/3 whole wheat flour, 2/3 bread flour, but had to add a fair amount of extra flour, as the dough was quite loose and sticky, so probably ended up with 1/4 whole wheat flour. The bread turned out great, although the loaf was quite misshapen. I'm not sure why, except that all the raisins and nuts do make it hard to shape evenly, and the plastic wrap stuck to the top. But it made the most delicious cinnamon toast ever!

• French bread

  • anya_sf on September 02, 2019

    This was my first attempt at baguettes and overall I was happy with them. I made the pate fermentee 2 days ahead. Transferring the risen baguette dough was tricky, but the instructions were helpful, and I also left them on parchment (plus watched some videos on the technique). My stupid mistake was not realizing my baking steel was too short, so the ends of my baguettes touched the oven rack and ended up burnt and misshapen. But the rest of the baguettes turned out well. After 22 min, they were definitely done, although the color was a bit light and the crust could have been crisper. Perhaps I should have left them in a few more minutes. The flavor was delicious and the crumb light and airy. I'll definitely make this recipe again, perhaps as batards.

• Whole-wheat bread

  • anya_sf on July 19, 2018

    I used regular whole wheat flour for the soaker. I added the oil, but not egg, and used water for the liquid. The bread was easy to make, but needed extra kneading to even approach the windowpane test (the bran seemed to tear the dough). The loaves were quite small, although they had risen the full amount - next time I'd consider one large loaf. The crumb was fairly fine and even, with a "classic" whole wheat bread taste and texture. Good for sandwiches or toast.

• Rich man's brioche

  • dwager on December 25, 2020

    I made this into loaves, but they came out very short. I would make two loaves instead of the three recommended in the recipe. Made a great bread pudding with this bread!

• Anadama bread

  • Rebeccajwj on April 15, 2022

    I make this bread every couple of weeks. It’s best to cut it very thick as thinner slices tend to crumble. And to account for the delicate dough, I’ve switched my pans to 9 x 4 tall sided (small) pullmans but with NO lid. I do think a lid would be OK, but I like the brown crust on the top. The taller pan has mostly resolved the crumble situation. This is one of our favorite toasting breads. Flavorful and pretty. It makes a great sandwich too. From the moment I tasted this bread I was in love! Be aware that you divide the flour and add it in two separate steps that are an hour apart. The dough is very wet compared to other breads, but it bakes up delicious.

• Middle-class brioche

  • pavolva on August 18, 2022

    Reliable standard brioche recipe. The dough is very friendly and quite easy to work with for the high fat %, particularly after the overnight retard/quasi-bulk fermentation. I adapted it for use in brioche-lemon curd-fruit tarts and for individual cinnamon brioche wreaths, and it would be excellent for any such brioche bun/roll purpose as is suggested in the recipe. Worked fine with ADY in a quantity of 1.2 times the weight of instant yeast called for, though you will have to rely a bit more on baker's intuition to assess through the stages of proofing.

• Food52

  Author discusses 5 changes in the bread world since the original edition of this book was published.

  Full review