River Cottage, Bread by Daniel Stevens is published by Bloomsbury publishing and can be bought from most bookshops, it is popular so kept in stock in most larger stores too.
For me this book was pivotal in my understanding of bread making (and why it’s the first I added here). I’d read a few books before, but none of them really put all the pieces together for me.
I read it a few years back now, and went from making bread that people would pretend to like, to making bread that rivalled what you can buy. The book goes step by step through the process of making bread, first covering the raw ingredients, followed by how to combine the ingredients, kneading and proving then finally moving on the the baking process. Each step is covered in great detail. There’s also a lot of recipes you can use to get started too.
After this book, you too will be able to go from having to follow existing recipes (which I kind of prefer not to do), to going my own way and deciding for myself exactly what I was going to make today.
