All You Knead is Bread: Over 50 recipes from around the world to bake & share

All You Knead is Bread: Over 50 recipes from around the world to bake & share

Jane Mason wants everyone to know how fun and easy it is to bake great bread. You don’t have to be an experienced baker or even to have made bread before to start creating delicious loaves. In this fascinating book, photographed by Peter Cassidy, Jane aims to inspire you to start baking by explaining the basic techniques, demystifying the process and showing you, with step-by-step photography, how simple it is to make a huge variety of breads. The recipes come from the four corners of the globe, but they all have one thing in common—they are easy to follow and the result is so much better for you than anything you can buy in the supermarket. Choose from more than 50 recipes, such as pitta bread, soda bread, cinnamon buns, cheese rolls, rye bread and corn bread. Spanning wheat and the myriad other grains used from country to country, this book will take you on a journey on which you will learn how to make bread and understand its unique ability to bring people together to celebrate, share and enjoy it. I bought this to help me expand away from a simple loaf and uncovered not only fantastic recipes but a great narrative on what bread is and what it means to people. The recipes are easy to follow and most suggest how you can alter it yourself if you want to. If you get stuck on technique there are also videos made by the author on her website. The narrative is written with a personal touch that has made me smile while reading and the recipes with instruction that almost allows you smell the end product before you have the joy of taking out of the oven yourself and sharing it. Jane Mason's 'All you knead is Bread' is a wonderful book, and an excellent resource for any kitchen bookshelf. It's informative and interesting, with beautiful prose, excellent photographs, easy-to-follow recipes and interesting anecdotes of travel/bread customs from around the world (who knew that if you dropped bread in Armenia, you had to pick it up and place in a high place (tree etc) to show respect?) The authors style makes it easy for beginners, as well as intermediate and advanced cooks. I ordered this book as a present for someone else, but have enjoyed it so much, I am keeping it for myself. In 3 days I have made 3 breads -with no disasters. I am a novice & £200 spent on books by "the famous experts" has left me confused & unsuccessful. But this book is different, this woman is a teacher. Simple step by step instructions even step by step photographs. The narrative sucked me in with easy to follow recipes for really interesting breads. The book even feels good - lovely slightly glossy pages that will withstand prod-ing sticky fingers. Fantastic. Jane Mason wants everyone to know how fun and easy it is to bake great bread. This book is a wonderful reflection of the life I have led, passionate about people, travelling, bread and food.  Over my life of baking, learning, and teaching I have discovered there is something truly uniting about bread.  Everyone has a bread story and yet making it remains a mystery to many people.  In this book there is something for everyone - gluten free bread from Indian and Italy, sweet bread from England, celebration bread from Mexico, everyday bread from the USA.  It reflects my love of bread and how, when hand made,  it reflects both our individuality and our humanity. Bread is a basic staple, an occasional treat, an inexpensive luxury, and a key part of celebration and ritual. It is a metaphor for money and, in many languages, the words for bread and life, joy, and celebration are interchangeable. Bread is the stuff of story, song and poetry, and is a symbol for everything that is basic and necessary. To waste bread is a sin. To make and share it is a blessing. Bread pushes our most ancient buttons and perhaps this is because on their own, the basic ingredients - flour, water, salt, and yeast - do not sustain us. They are only life giving when they are combined. Good bread is the end product of a good process that includes responsible farming, gentle milling, an element of hand baking, and local delivery with minimal packaging. At the centre of communities for millennia, good bread is a window into culture, affirming both our individuality and our collective humanity. Jane Mason is a baker, writer and social entrepreneur. She set up Virtuous Bread in 2010 to teach people to make and learn about good bread. Jane also teaches baking in prisons, schools and care homes for the elderly.