The Best Bread Ever
September 14th, 2007 | Published in Books & Reading, Essays, Food | 4 Comments
A book caught my eye while I was browsing the cooking section at the library: The Best Bread Ever by Charles Van Over. Normally I don’t look at books with such claims, but bread happens to be a weakness of mine. I scanned the book and, of all things, the author was advocating the use of a food processor instead of hand kneading. If this was the best bread ever, why isn’t everyone using it? And who is this guy, anyway?
He’s a genius. I know because I tried his bread. I can confidently say that the basic recipe and techniques in this book helped me create the best bread I’ve ever tasted at home – in the first try. I baked a few baguettes. The crust was golden brown and crisp. The inside was moist and soft. It tasted delicious. I ate too much.
Surely, you say, there must be lots of sugar or oil or butter. That’s what I figured too. The truth is, this is the simplest bread recipe I’ve ever seen. It contains flour, yeast, sea salt, and water. That’s it. No sugar, corn syrup, oil, eggs, butter, or shortening.
What’s the secret? He does everything so different that it is probably a combination. Mixing in the food processor is different, but since I didn’t do that, it can’t be the key. (It sure makes things easier, though.) He lets the dough rise at room temperature instead of in a warm place. There is no kneading. The bread is folded in a very specific way. But the main difference, I think, is a hot oven.
I usually preheat the oven for 5 minutes or so — until the “pre-heated” light comes on. The problem is, when the door opens to put the food in, the oven cools about 75 degrees. So Van Over says to preheat the oven at 475 degrees… for an hour. I did it for about 45 minutes which seemed long enough. I also cooked it on a baking stone that was in there during the pre-heat. And a pan of water creates steam to make the crackling crust.
A hot oven combined with high quality organic ingredients and a little technique gave me the best bread I’ve ever baked. If you like bread, be sure to take a look at this book!
(The basic recipe I used is also available online.)
September 14th, 2007 at 7:10 pm (#)
Mmm, sounds good.
A shame that I cannot eat bread.
I wonder if this would work with gluten free grains like millet, quinoa, or…rice?
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:30 am (#)
Hi Josh.
Thank you for your blog. This is one of the least predictive and most informative and interesting information source.
I showed the recipe and the link to my wife and she tried to follow the recipe. What she did different: She didn’t use a baking stone (because we don’t have one) and she took wholemeal. But the problem was that the bread didn’t “expand” the way it should and then the crust wasn’t that good either.
Did you do a wholemeal bread with this recipe?
January 25th, 2008 at 8:24 am (#)
My wife bought this book for me, and I must say it is fantastic. It has revolutionized the way I make bread!
July 13th, 2008 at 12:54 pm (#)
Glad to see another person into van Over’s bread. Since the book is hard to find, I set up an instruction site at http://ovenstone.wordpress.com/