Richard Bertinet - Crumb
Richard Bertinet is a trained baker that has a cooking school in Bath. Crumb is not his first book, his other bread books are Dough and Crust which are now on my wish list. I was reading this book for quite some time because some of the recipes are actually quite complex - or at least the processes are. There are some videos that Richard has made for online help.
This book was the book of the month back in March 2019 for the Great British Chefs book club. I was really excited to delve into this book and for me it really did not disappoint. In the book club there was much discussion about the printing errors (of which there was a few) and how poor this is. I always write all over my books so honestly I was not in the least bit upset about the errors which were easy enough to correct (especially since there is a crumb erratum list). I have another bread book which to me really doesn’t focus enough on the bread aspect. I found this book really interesting and I learnt a huge amount about bread reading this. I loved it. There are lots of tips and tricks, a list of essential items and a wish list for as you progress.
Aside from fresh hot bread, I LOVE English muffins and crumpets and am eager to progress to these as time goes on. Richard suggests starting with the foundation dough and progressing on so you get your confidence and understand how the dough should feel and behave.
Today I made our sour dough starter which really excites me. I love sour dough and have wanted to make a starter for quite some time - largely for pizza dough if I am honest. Richard has a range of tips and trouble shooting for the starter to help you be successful. I love also how reading Richard’s notes makes this feel doable and not too difficult.
I confess the sour dough took me a while to make it and get it in the fridge, there were a couple of false starts (including not using glass but plastic because you won’t want to lose your starter if you drop the glass jar) and I made it once and it went mouldy rather than bubbly. I did not ever figure out why but the second batch went well so I obviously did something very wrong.
The stand out dishes for me are the English muffins, the crumpets and the cinnamon knots, all wonderful breakfast items, all of which I often buy and all of which are more often than not quite meh.
This is a wonderful book with lots of step by step pictures and explanations which really will help you along your way. I heartily recommend this book to everybody. If you love bread and want to start making your own then this is the book for you and you will love it. There are 'simple' breads and much more complex and difficult ones but if you follow this book through from start to finish the by the time you get to the more complex recipes you should be confident and competent.
Recipes 9/10
Readability 9/10
Knowledge learnt 10/10
Total 28/30