Thanks Peter!

Peter Reinhart is the dean of American bread bakers, possibly the best in the world.  He teaches baking at Johnson & Wales University in Providence RI, has written six books on bread baking, and has won the James Beard and IACP Cookbook of the Year awards.  On any given day, he’s flying around the world spreading the gospel of great bread– Peter’s an international authority on my favorite subject.

So I was pleased to see his latest book, Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day, which was released on October 27, 2009.  Here was a world authority giving his take on super-fast bread (he doesn’t store his dough so it’s very different than what we do in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and in Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day).   Peter acknowledged our books and the quality of our results in his own book.  Here’s what he had to say in Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day:

Page 7:  “… when I first read the instructions for the master hearth bread recipe in a recently published book, I immediately assumed, based on my understanding of dough science, that it contained way too much yeast to work as promised.  How could it possibly last in the refrigerator for even one day without overfermenting while the yeast gobbled up all the released sugar?  How could it possibly create a tasty, moist, and creamy loaf (what some describe as the custard-like quality found in great breads)?  Yet, when I made the recipe, it worked and didn’t overferment.  Sure, I saw areas where the recipe could be tweaked and improved upon, but this didn’t diminish my astonishment at how greatly it exceeded my expectations. Although I have yet to find a scientific, chemical, or biological reason to explain why it works, the results forced me to reconsider all of the premises I once held sacrosanct…”

In case anyone’s wondering if Peter’s really talking about our method, turn to page 204 of his book, where he acknowledges our first book by name, as a resource, and again mentions our “excellent results.”

Thanks Peter!

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