Friday, September 18, 2009

Cookbook Watch: Great books on bread

surdegsbrod

If you're a Swedish bread-lover, you're in luck. Two new books just came out and both are really incredibly good! The first one has been talked about quite a lot - it's Surdegsbröd (Sourdough Bread) by Martin Johansson who blogs at Pain de Martin. It's a real blogging success story - he started baking, got into it, blogged about it and eventually got to write a book! I've tried several of his recipes from the blog and they've all turned out nicely. The book has a lot of all sourdough recipes, with no added yeast, and since that's my current obsession (it's just so much fun!) I really look forward to baking my way through this one. And yes, he has a lot of recipes on the blog, but the book is so well structured it's well worth getting.

brunkebergsbageri

And then we have Bröd (Bread) by Heléne Johansson. Ah. She runs a bakery called Brunkebergs Bageri that consistently gets great reviews, but I've never managed to go there while they're actually open. After reading through the book, I clearly need to make more of an effort! Everything sounds lovely - and surprisingly approachable. It has great variety - from parmesan crackers to the darkest of sour rye breads - and sourdough as well as yeasted breads. I wish there had been a recipe for their cinnamon buns, which apparently are quite famed, but other than that, it's pretty perfect. In fact, I can't wait to get baking - and that is truly the mark of a great cookbook.

5 comments:

Sara said...

It does look great. One of my friends studied abroad in Sweden so I might have to bug her to translate some of those recipes...

Jessica said...

Martin Johanssons book has the benefit that, from reading the blog, all the recipes has been baked and re-baked and baked again to actually work in the home kitchen. Not all cook books have their recipes actually test cooked in a home kitchen to see so that they actually work.

Jessica said...

Innehåller bröd från Brunkebergs bageri andra bröd än surdegsbröd?

Anne said...

Jessika - ja, den innehåller en del andra bröd också. De allra flesta innehåller nån typ av fördeg, men inte alla.

Pille said...

BOth of the books sound really good!!