Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Buy This if You Have Already Bought 'Baking With Passion', 17 April 2007
I snapped this book up as soon as I saw it, as I think that Dan Lepard's recipes are wonderful. I do though feel a bit cheated as it is basically the bread section (same photos even) from Baking With Passion. I have not gone through it one by one but can only see a very few new recipes.
If you don't have 'Baking with Passion' already and have no interest in the cakes/pattiserie recipes then this is a good book (hence 3 stars rather than a cheated and annoyed 1).
Dan Lepards recipes (and photos) are fantastic, and I recommend him to anyone, but I only need one copy of each recipe thanks.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Purchased a year ago but still waiting to be used...., 18 Mar 2009
I read some positive reviews about this book but was extremely disappointed when it arrived. I already own Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb and Daniel Leader's Local Breads, both of which are fantastic guides to baking traditional artisan bread with a wealth of recipes in each one; I was expecting Dan Lepard to do the same in Exceptional Breads, but sadly I have had the book for over a year and have not used it once. The thing that puts me off most are the complicated and expensive ingredients required for the sourdough formulas (and if you do not have one of the sourdoughs prepared you cannot use 60% of the recipes in this book). And secondly, there are very few recipes in this book - the recipe section only begins on page 64, leaving you with very few actual recipes.
I have created successful sourdough cultures using just flour and water (there's a wonderful formula in Local Breads). For his sourdough culture Dan Lepard uses not just these 2 basic ingredients, but apple juice, orange juice, grapes and raisin, yoghurt, freshly squuezed orange juice - and plenty of it too. For example one of his sourdoughs requires 300g strong white flour, 300g plain yoghurt, 200 ml apple juice, 100g raisins. Most sourdough cultures in other books work perfectly well when refreshed once a week - Dan Leppard, however, requires that you refresh your culture EVERY DAY!! So every day he expects you discard 600g of your mixture and to add a new mixture of yoghurt, milk , flour. It is going to be quite an expensive bread if you have to use so many ingredients and have to refresh your culture every day. I have made a successful rye sourdough as well as a levain using Dan Leader's Local Breads, which require only water and flour and a refreshment once a week and they work perfectly, so to have to refresh every day seems very extravagant. If you use 300g flour everyday for a month you'll be using 9 kilograms of flour in a month just for the starter!
Dan Leppard provides 4 different starters or sourdoughs, and then moves on to the recipes. Unfortunately I found this section very disappointing too. After having cultivated your sourdough and all those expensive daily refreshments, the only recipes which the book includes for breads with sourdough are the following five: San Francisco Sourdough, Pain au levain, Bramley Apple sourdough, potato and rosemary bread , granary and sunflower bread. The next section is baking with commercial yeast and contains: wholemeal bread, baguettes, french wheaten rye, semolina bread, gralic bread. The next section is Flat Breads and includes 5 recipes for focaccias, pretzels , fougasse, etc, followed by Sweet Breads, again with a handful of recipes.
All this seems very time-consuming and expensive and hardly worth the effort; the recipe section is meagre and offers the basic breads that every other bread book contains so you won't get anything very original if you buy Exceptional Breads. In fact, the only thing this book has done is put me off making sourdough for ever (it very nearly did, but luckily Peter Reinhart and Dan Leader came along!)
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional Breads, 14 Jul 2008
An excellent little book with lots of tips and assistance for the novice and semi-skilled baker. If you want to master genuine, hand-made bread at home i.e. not bread maker or quick proving loaves. Topics include; wild yeasts, making your own levain, kneading & shaping dough etc. This is an exceptional place to brush up on your knowledge & skills. Beautiful imagery (if you're into pictures of bread!) A great practical gift helping you perfect at least 20 styles of bread, not a 'look how clever I am' coffee table book.
Superb at the price.
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