Ken ForkishAnmeldelser

Love the concept and art in this book. Will this be the book that finally sets aside my fear of making and mucking-up yeast breads?

Alas, no.

This book reinforced how temperamental yeast breads are. If anything, I'm more overwhelmed and less likely to try my hand at yeast bread making. I'll stick with quick breads.

But I did enjoy the book.

I received a galley of this book via NetGalley.

Straight up: I want to buy this book. I’ve read many baking books that discuss how to cultivate and utilize sourdough starters, and this is the least intimidating, most friendly of the lot. Every recipe is fully illustrated with detailed instructions led by avatars of baker Ken Forkish and comic book artist Sarah Becan. The one downside is that the book doesn’t include many recipes, but several variations are included. Really, this book provides an accessible foundation to perfect sourdough techniques and innovate from there.

Very technical guide to breadmaking, in case you want to obsess over making bread. I'm happy with my level of skill, and don't feel the need to delve deeply into these techniques. I also don't need the responsibility and work of keeping a levain alive. This is not the book to get if you just want to learn to bake bread.

And as some other reviewers mentioned, oh the privilege on display. Yikes.

The author of FWSY improved this more recent publication as a reference bread-making book. The focus was less chatty on the personal backstories, and included more straightforward how-to and recipes. The photography was outstanding in documenting the dough manipulation.

On a personal level, recipes were not as applicable in my kitchen since I have no interest in making sourdoughs, or buying a Dutch oven type of container for baking bread. However, there were solid entries for the familiar open loaf pan and good advice on using different fermentation procedures to boot up the flavour to an artisanal level. Many recipes have only very small changes and rely on experienced dough-handling to take advantages of these subtle manipulations.

Recommended as a techniques book if you are interested in developing bread products to a higher level.

A journey from tech employment to becoming a successful baker. The narrative was interesting, much like the evolution of learning to bake bread products, as told by Sam Fromartz In Search of the Perfect Loaf. In FWSY, the author supplies easy to follow recipes and detailed techniques.

One flaw in the presentation was the focus on recipes with rather minor adjustments to create a different product. Maybe in professional baking facilities and processes, as well as reliance on a Dutch oven mode of cooking, this might be useful.
In a standard home kitchen, not so much. There were comments about managing pre-ferments, like poolish and biga, adjusting conditions to achieve a good fermentation and bulk proofing however, which make this a useful reference cookbook.

It might seem like cheating for me to include a cookbook in my “books read this year” list, but this isn’t a book of recipes so much as a book about how to bake bread that also includes recipes. It’s packed with details while still being easy to follow and it’s suitable for any skill level, so I can see why it’s a “bread bible” for so many people. I’ve also been extremely happy with the bread I’ve made with its guidance. (As of this review, I’ve only made the white bread with poolish, but I did it twice and it turned out perfectly both times.)

I first learned how to bake bread from my mom, but I’ve had to unlearn just about all of her techniques. (For one thing, you really do need to measure by weight instead of volume, so even though Ken includes volume measurements in the book, please spring for a digital scale like he recommends!) I also make a pretty damn good soft sandwich bread using a straight dough that takes about 4 hours to be ready from start to finish, but this book is really going to take my bread game to a new level. I had always been too intimidated by the technical details of using pre-ferments and measuring the dough’s temperature, but this book breaks everything down into layperson-accessible steps and anticipates a lot of the problems you might encounter.

It’s all great! Looking forward to making more and more of the recipes and coming up with one I can call my own.

Welcome to the land of Pizza!

The Elements of Pizza contains more information on pizza-making than I thought existed. And who doesn't love pizza? The author certainly has strong ideas about what makes delicious pizza, but he does not disdain other pizza making methods, nor does he skimp on the recipes!

With all the information on how pizza is made in different geographical areas, and the (very respectful) spotlight that he shines on various pizza makers, it is not until chapter six that we find the recipes. I appreciated the tips on how to store extra dough, and how to parbake it so that it loses little in texture and taste and is then ready for quickly making pizza.

In-depth information about dough is included, and I found it very interesting. I could not agree more with Forkish: the most important part of pizza making is the dough, He encourages you to mix with your hands, not only to avoid over mixing, but to learn how the dough feels when coming together, so if anything feels off, it can be remedied.

The recipes are amazing: traditional can't-go-wrong standards are included next to new and unusual takes on pizza. They all sound delicious. The author notes that even if you choose expensive ingredients to top your pizza with, it will most likely cost less making it at home than purchasing a pie out at a restaurant.

This is a love letter to pizza, and I highly recommend it to anyone who regularly makes, or wants to make, delicious pizza at home.


**eARC Netgalley**

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Not a bad book by any means, and I really enjoyed the "background" of pizza making. The recipes look pretty good, and while I didn't make any pizzas while reviewing this book, it is one cookbook that I'll probably use next time I get a hankering for homemade pizza. My rating may be changed after I try a few of the recipes.

One issue I do have is with the ARC, which was nearly unreadable. The forced two-page format was a constant struggle of resizing the pages to be able read the text, which had to be reaccomplished with every single page turn. Very frustrating.

The Elements of Pizza: Unlocking the Secrets to World-Class Pies at Home by artisan baker Ken Forkish focuses on mastering the process of pizza making for Italian and New York style pizza. Once you master the process, the variations are only limited by your imagination. I will learn the dough recipes, master the techniques, and then let the actual pizza recipes spur new creations.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2016/05/the-elements-of-pizza.html

Reviewed for the Blogging for Books program