In this age of baking bread, I was happy to expand my bread horizons. I made the kvass from the kvassmiche recipe and the pan de miele. The kvass was pretty good and the pan de miele was a little dense but that could be user-error. This is not a book for the faint of heart. Scheft does go into detail over how to understand your baking temperature, baker's math, etc but the techniques are at their heart advanced that often require several days before the bready payoff. Most of the recipes do require sourdough starter or other specialty flours.

Breaking Breads by Uri Scheft gives spirit to old favorites, and is a reflection of the author’s travels. Traditional challah, laminated breads, flatbreads, and stuffed breads are all greatly described and made, and he mixes contemporary ingredients with traditional methods. And it’s not just about yeast breads – we are presented with wonderful treats for afternoon tea or coffee, too, and all the things to serve them with, a surprising focus on the savory here.

While there are non-bread recipes, the bulk of the book details on creating the best bread at home, from start to finish. Actually, the introduction contains a great section on bread basics, from ingredients and mixing, to baking and creating your own steam oven easily at home. Scheft even goes into bakers percentages (using flour as your 100% benchmark) and the proper way of scaling up a recipe precisely and mathematically, since baking really is a science.

The color photos throughout Breaking Breads show the perfect baked recipe and step by step instructions on how to complete tasks. Examples include showing how to shape and braid a perfect challah and how to stretch the paper thin strudel needed for all its glorious wafer-thin layers. And let me tell you, nothing is as much fun as stretching strudel dough over a large table.

Most of the recipes have long instructions, but don’t be turned off by that. It is like the author is there instructing you step by step. Without his clear guidelines it wouldn’t be as easy to recreate some of the treasures in the book.

All the recipes make you want to spend a few days in the bakeshop baking, but my favorite recipe in the book isn’t even a bread at all, though. It’s a Middle Eastern twist on the traditional Mexican wedding cookies or Russian tea cakes (same thing) – with the addition of tahini paste and sesame seeds. A really lovely book all around.

Breaking Breads: A New World of Israeli Baking by Uri Scheft has become one of my absolute favorite bread baking books! Homemade bread is a staple in my family and this book contains copious amounts of recipes worth keeping.

I was very interested to check this book out because my Syrian ancestry introduced me to bread at an early age and flat and fancy breads were quite common growing up. I can still remember walking into Jid's (Grandfather's) house and smelling the fresh baked Syrian bread. So, when I saw this, I had to grab it!

The book starts out with Challahs and a handful of different Challah recipes. The very first basic challah dough recipe is wonderful. Step by step photos are included which makes them so easy! The breads are so impressive and professional looking. There are rolls, stuffed breads, crescents, and cookies to name a few.

This is a book that I'll be purchasing to keep and enjoy in my kitchen. I'm so glad to have come across it!

5*****

I loved this book! It has such great recipes and such a lovely feel to it. Makes me wish the Galley copy didn't expire - will have to purchase one of my own! So good!

I am always looking for the perfect bread baking book and I have to admit that the photography in such a book plays a huge part in me liking it. That is why when I first opened this book and there was a tantalising image of bread crumbs and seeds I could almost smell freshly baked bread...I knew this book was going to be a good one. Each image was like a love song to bread with beautiful plump dough proving, artisan hands kneading dough, and golden challah encouraging me to read further.

Breaking breads just got better as I was reading, and I was only at the first recipe. Something I have been looking for in a bread baking book is how long to knead for with a dough hook, I want the machine to do most of the work and then stretch the dough like Uri Scheft does in the book. With the time suggestions from this book I feel more confident to give it a go. I understand that the bread baking artisan wants to keep it all natural by using their own hands but I like that this shares the dough hook method.

Each recipe is very precise and I like that it has ingredient measurements in both grams and cups or spoons, it gives the baker options that best suit their method or cooking, The tips are helpful and give a good description of how the bread should look when it is broken and with the author suggesting the reader not to be shy when adding things into the dough, this instills in me a confidence to have a go.

Overall, this is now officially my favourite bread baking book, it shows me I can bake these loaves with confidence, that if I should trip up there are suggestions about why this may have happened and the step by step instructions and pictures give me a visual of what to do. Now off to bake some bread...

A fantastic assortment of recipes for all occasions, this is a great book for any level of baking.

Variety is the spice of life and is an essential ingredient for a good cookbook, particularly one that focuses on baking.  Breaking Breads definitely offers a large variety of recipes from sweet to savory.  I particularly liked the sesame tahini cookies and the cheese shortbread.  If you get this cookbook be prepared to spend a lot of time.  The recipes require a decent amount of baking experience and are fairly complex.  I bake a lot of bread, and a good number of the recipes were a bit too involved for my liking.  If your only baking experience comes from making the occasional cake or batch of cookies, Breaking Breads isn't for you.  On the other hand, if you are a dedicated, experienced baker looking to try new ethnic delights, you will greatly enjoy this book.  There is a gorgeous assortment of stuffed breads and pastries of Israeli origin, but they are not easy to prepare.  There are pictures to help with preparation of some unfamiliar items.  The photographs throughout are mouthwatering.

On the whole Breaking Breads is an excellent book for the experienced baker.  I would have liked there to be a few more easier to prepare items included, but as it stands it is a beautiful cookbook.

4/5

I received a copy of Breaking Breads from the publisher and netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

--Crittermom

This is a beautiful cookbook filled with wonderful breads and other accompaniments. The author explains everything and provides pictures for different steps that are very helpful