True Bread - Joaquín Llarás

REPRINT: New cover, same content.

Quality bread –alongside its appropriate starter and proofing time– is the real protagonist of this book, whose main objective is to help understand the different aspects to bear in mind regarding the selection of flours, the ferments, the kneading, forming and baking processes of bread, as well as to detail, in a clear way, how to prepare a large number of specialties.

A varied, exhaustive catalog

The book is divided into a very extensive introduction in which the main ingredients of bread are studied and another part devoted to the basic preparation stages, particularly focusing on the different types of sourdough starters and natural leavening agents. The chapter on breads is the most ambitious, and displays a large number of step-by-step preparations which range from classic breads, such as Galician bread, baguette or peasant’s bread, to those which belong to a new generation of particularly healthy ones, such as organic, spelt, tritordeum or Kamut bread. Italian specialties play a special role in this book, and are a reflection of the experience which the author himself gained in that country. Focaccia, ciabatta Bolognese, pane all’oglio and even panettone are fully explained in the pages of this book, with step-by-step photographs which will surely help reveal their own essence.

Enriched doughs, such as those of croissant, ensaïmada or brioche, complete the wide range of recipes, altogether making up more than 40 different creations (25 bread and 15 enriched dough recipes). The book also contains a didactic section devoted to the preparation of bread without professional equipment. Finally, the book is complemented by a group of videos which will help understand in detail the forming, scoring and marking techniques which characterize each dough contained in it.

Bread

• Baguette with poolish: “Pain d’épi” (wheat stalk bread) and y Black olive bread
• “Pa de pagès” (Peasant’s bread)
• Galician bread: Galician bread with topknot and Galician bread with Iberian ham and provolone cheese
• Pane all’olio (oil bread): Oregano batons
• Ciabatta: Ciabatta loaves, Round Ciabatta and Fougasse-shaped ciabatta
• Vienna bread: Hamburger bread and Kaiser rolls
• Tin loaf
• Wholemeal wheat bread
• Seed bread
• Rye bread
• Organic spelt bread
• Tritordeum bread
• Triticum Turgidum Khorasan bread
• Cheese bread
• Onion bread
• Walnut bread
• Chocolate-orange bread
• “Besucones” (kissing buns)
• Flat loaf
• “Coca de forner” (baker’s sweet bread)
• Focaccia

Other enriched doughs

• Butter croissant: Cocoa shells with blueberries and Croissant shells with béchamel sauce, tuna and “piquillo” pepper
• Brioche: Marzipan-filled king cake
• Panettone
• “Ensaïmada”
• Fritters
• Cookies: Three chocolates, Ginger and spelt and Chocolate & walnut
• Coffee and chocolate madeleines
• Muffins: Apple and raisins and Banana, yogurt and chocolate loaf cake