The New Family Bread Book [Hardcover]

I am a huge fan of Ursula Ferrigno and have a number of her general cookery and vegetarian recipe books as well as baking books (both bread and cakes). So I was not expecting much when I bought The New Family Bread Book, thinking to myself "How many more delicious recipes can one person produce?" Well, I was very wrong - this is a lovely bread making book, totally different to her previous one ("Bread"). If you're a fan of Ursula's recipes or just a home-made breadbaking fan, you're going to love this book.

Being a "family" bread book, Ursula takes into account that you don't have all day for making bread and therefore most of the recipes in here are straight dough breads that rise for a couple of hours and then are baked later on in the day. However, it is also a "bread" book and Ursula fully takes into account the fact that sometimes bread needs more time and has to ferment for longer to give you a better taste. And so she combines both approaches exceptionally well: there are some double versions of recipes, such as the pizza crust recipe, one for a quick rise when you're in a hurry and have just a couple of hours to bake your dough, and one for a slow-rise pizza which ferments longer in a cool spot to give you even better taste. Most of the "quick" straight dough recipes have a variation at the end, telling you how much starter (the Italian 'biga' made the day before) you need to add to your dough to enhance its flavour or how long to leave it on the fridge for a longer fermentation. So whether you want a quick bread the same day or you want to leave it in the fridge overnight, you have both options.

Another aspect of its versatility is the information on how much yeast you need. Usrula says that she prefers fresh yeast and the amount in each recipe is for the fresh variety, but each recipe contains a note at the top of the page saying how many spoons of dried yeast you need. I live in a tiny town where it is absolutely impossible to get fresh yeast and I only use dried, so I find this information really useful. Many bread books out there give you complicated formulas for how to convert the amount of fresh yeast you need into the amount of dried but leave you to do the calculation yourself...however, Ursula makes the job much easier for you by simply telling you how much yeast you need whether it is fresh or dry that you are using.

And finally the recipes are easy to follow, some for simple plain bread like pizza dough, pain de campagne, spelt bread with herbs; others with added ingredients such as the roast garlic and courgette bread, walnut bread, or dill and creme fraiche bread. There are many wonderful suggestions for pizza toppings and stuffed pizza fillings. There are gorgeous photos accompanying the recipes - one look at the pictures and you can't wait to get into the kitchen to get started. And best of all the recipes work so well - I have made nearly 15 different breads using The New Family Bread Book and enjoyed every one of them, particularly the savoury breads and her sourdough bread (which is actually quite easy to make and you don't need a sourdough starter cultivated for a week). I would certainly recommend this book to all home bread bakers out there who prefer using quick starters in the breads rather than cultivating sourdough cultures, as this is definitely a book which tries to save time and you won't find much sourdough in here. You'll get quick breads with optional overnight starters but you'll be amazed how marvellous they are!

I borrowed this book from my local library and loved it so much that I bought it. The book is worth buying for her recipe for chocolate brioche alone- its fabulous!.If you like making bread you will not be dissapointed with this book