The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook: Artisanal Baking from Around the World Hardcover – October 13, 2015

I first checked this book out from the library, but after a week or so decided that it was a book I needed to have in my home permanently. I didn't realize when I checked out the cookbook, but the Hot Bread Kitchen is actually a venture in New York City for "low income, immigrant, and minority individuals" to learn more about commercial baking and other applicable skills (more at their website hotbreadkitchen.org). The cookbook has tasty recipes but is also enjoyable to read.The recipes, as you would assume, are mostly for bread. However, there are a handful of recipes in the book to use the bread products as well. So far, I have made:pitas - the dough was a bit sticky which was a struggle and I wish I had added a teeny bit more flour to the dough, but they were tasty and it was worth itnaan - not like naan I've had before but not being from India and not having been to India, who am I to say what is or is not real; also very tasty and pretty easy to makepate fermentee - this is the base for a lot of the breads to (as they say) add depth of flavor and extra fermentation; not all breads use a full recipe of this and so now I have some sitting in my fridge and while it says it should only be refrigerated for 24 hours, I'm going to chance it and make some challah nextcemitas - uses the dough for rustic batard and ends up being little rolls; they turned out really wellcarnitas - we did the slow cooked one and it was good, but we wanted it to be amazing; we used it for carnitas cemitas; also, it may have been affected by my decision to use coca cola instead of beer, as the recipe called forchicken tinga tostadas - amazing and totally worth at least checking the book out from the libraryrefried beans - which, by the way, aren't actually refried; they weren't my favorite, but we used them in both the tostadas and the cemitas; they taste good with other stuff but I wouldn't eat them by themselves as I would some other bean recipes that I havechapatis - turned out, but it turns out that I don't think I really like chapatis (as I previously suspected), which is not the recipe's faultBottom line: it's a great cookbook and all of the breads I have made so far have turned out beautifully. Also, the descriptions are spot on. In the chapati recipe it tells you to mix it until it "looks like thick cookie dough" and when I started that sounded silly but that's exactly what it ended up looking like. Also, the pate fermentee is said that the ingredients will combine into a "shaggy dough". Spot on.

This is what a cookbook should be in the age of the Internet. An interesting story, lots of photos, and good recipes. This isn't one of the superfussy solemn artisanal bread books so much in fashion now, but it does use the extra-effort pre-ferment techniques that make for good bread and thus qualifies as "artisanal". A bonus: better-than-usual shaping instructions.I've tried the rye, the rustic loaf, the barbari, and the olive bread. All good, all worth the effort - though I have made a much fussier and lengthier barbari recipe that gives somewhat better results. I'm glad to have a simpler barbari recipe that gets 7/8ths of the way to the great one. Feel free to take away my breadbaker cred for that one, if you must. But buy the book. It won't be your only or your main bread book, but it more than justifies a place in your collection.

I love this cookbook. With the Internet these days, cookbooks are not as necessary. We just look up recipes each time we need one. But this cookbook is a necessary book for your pantry. It is like a text book because it teaches you about how to think bread: it doesn't just list ingredients. Browsing through the pages is like walking through the countries represented and meeting the chefs. The book explains techniques in a way a newbie breadbaker could understand. It also includes some recipes for sandwiches and other things related to the loaf you are making. As an example, the rye bread recipe adds how to make a Ruben, even including the sauce for the sandwich! I highly recommend this book for your kitchen and as a gift for a friend. They might invite you to share a freshly baked slice of bread. mmmm!

As with most cookbooks photographs are very helpful. Don’t have to be fancy just sometimes a picture is worth a 1000 words or whatever. Also why cookbooks choose to put photos of finished products 20 pages before the recipe blows my mind. Otherwise it has some great recipes for a variety of cultures breads

I've only made one recipe from this so far. That was the New York deli rye. I am a New Yorker originally and for the last few years I have been trying to recreate the chewy, dense rye bread of my childhood. I tried recipes from Rose Levy Berenbaum, two from King Arthur Flour, one from King Solomon's Table (great book), and countless ones off the internet. And Eureka, this is it. I added two generous teaspoons of deli rye flavor (basically just powdered vinegar) from King Arthur but the rest was by the book. The texture was exactly right. And for finally helping me achieve that goal, it gets 5 stars.

Wonderful stories about the Hot Bread Kitchen and it's baking family. The bakers share authentic home recipes from Moroccan M'smen (unleavened flatbreads) to filled doughs from Albania and Tibet. Good instructions both in text and image. Baked the New Yorker Rye the other day and loved the look in the eyes of my German father-in-law when he took a bite: "That's the taste of the "Kümmel brod" my mother used to bake!" With so many bread baking books already out there it is hard to come up with an authentic and inspiring book that can compete with the best. But Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez pulled it off.Highly recommended both for beginners and more seasoned home bakers with other bread books on the shelf.(E.g. Reinhart, Hamelman, Forkish, Robertson, to name a few)

I’m preparing to make Naan from this book. Based on the pictures, and my collection of flatbread cookbooks, this book provides recipes that are practical for American bakers, and gives options for baking techniques that best approximate the techniques used in the countries of origin. A beautiful and inspiring book.