Cookbooks

Baking with Passion by Dan Lepard

Baking with Passion – Introduction

Baking with Passion is an important book because it carefully describes the techniques required to create great breads, cakes and pastries.

The recipes are sourced from the London specialty bread shop Baker and Spice and have been tested and tuned by master bakers Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington.

The first main chapter on sourdough starters is a gem and recipes are provided for a San Francisco sourdough starter as well as an Italian poolish and a French levain. We have tested the San Francisco starter and it worked almost immediately and had good flavour.

All of the starters use some form of sugar addition, either through the addition of fruit or honey. There is a certain excitement to be gained by trying to create a starter just using flour and water and relying on natural yeasts in the air to kick off the fermentation process.

Following the discussion of sourdough starters a number of well-written recipes for a variety of breads are provided including sourdoughs, fougasse, focaccia and grissini.

The authors of Baking with Passion then delve into other forms of baked goods such as brioche, clafoutis, crumpets, doughnuts, krantz cake and soda bread to give but a few examples.

They then move into cakes and pastries. Try the lemon cake and the recipe for pithiviers – they are both wonderful recipes.

This is an apparently simple book that treats the reader with respect by providing enough in-depth explanation so that you know why you are doing the steps required for producing such artful baked goods.

We have included this excellent book in our Foodtourist Top Fifty Cookbooks.

You can order this book from Amazon by clicking on the link below:

Baking with Passion by Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington

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