Upper Crust: Homemade Bread The French Way

Explore the art of French bread baking, encompassing ingredient selection, starter cultivation, and bread-making techniques, and enjoy over 100 delightful recipes.

While the iconic baguette stands as a symbol of French cuisine, the nation's rich bread-baking tradition, influenced by a variety of cultures, offers an extensive array of bread styles. This book provides insight into the history of French bread, helps home bakers choose the right ingredients—such as grains, flour, water, salt, and starter—and delivers detailed guidance on the step-by-step bread-making process. From nurturing the starter, kneading and preparing the dough, to the baking stage, you'll discover the secrets to crafting delicious bread. Additionally, you'll find a treasure trove of over 100 recipes.

Collaborating with eighteen skilled bakers and pastry chefs, this book showcases both sweet and savory creations that have established the prestigious reputation of French bakeries. From classic round pain de campagne and olive and oregano bread to regional specialties like fougasse and Basque talos, these recipes bring the essence of French bread to your kitchen. A new generation of chefs has also contributed original innovations, such as black sesame baguettes, matcha tea-infused bread, buckwheat and seaweed galettes, and honey, fig, and hazelnut rye bread. Moreover, you'll explore traditional breads from around the world, reimagined in a French style, including pita, focaccia, bagels, Georgian khachapuri, and Norwegian polar bread. The culinary journey extends to recipes like pains surprise, croque monsieur, onion soup with cheese croutons, and delightful desserts such as pain perdu and kouign-amann.

Each recipe is accompanied by pictograms indicating the level of difficulty, time required, type of starter used, and whether it's gluten-free, offering practical guidance for every baker.