Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Some background: I am an advanced home baker with a couple years of professional baking under my belt, many years ago, so that is the perspective from which I write this review.
What this book is: a compilation of recipes from Tartine Bakery. There are only a few bread recipes, and then a collection of dishes made with those breads.
What it is not: a comprehensive bread baking book, or a book for beginners.
There really are only a few bread recipes in this book. The author goes into lengthy detail about his breads, his philosophy, and how to make them. For those of you who are familiar with Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking's treatise on how to make an omelet (it's about 20 pages long), that is what you will find here, just a lot fewer recipes. Why? Because Tartine specializes in making a few breads and pastries, and this book is about their bakery.
If you are looking for a comprehensive baking book of artisan breads, try Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread." If you want easy, tasty recipes for most home bakers, take a look at the King Arthur Flour baking books, or Beth Hensperger's excellent "Bread Bible."
So, if you are not into creating and nursing sourdough starters, or you have no interest in reading through 20 pages of instructions to teach you how to make an artisan loaf of Tartine bread, this is not the book for you. There are plenty of other wonderful books on the market for that.
I would recommend this book for intermediate or advanced home bakers, or for professionals who are really looking to expand their bread baking repertoire.
The book does have some of the most detailed photos on folding and shaping loaves that I've seen, but the "artsy" quality of those photos is really irritating - I don't want to see special shadowing, I just want a clear picture of a technique.
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