Publisher Description

From Portland's most acclaimed and beloved baker comes this must-have baking guide, featuring scores of recipes for world-class breads and pizzas and a variety of schedules suited for the home baker.In Flour Water Salt Yeast, author Ken Forkish demonstrates that high-quality artisan bread and pizza is within the reach of any home baker. Whether it's a basic straight dough, dough made with a pre-ferment, or a complex levain, each of Forkish's impeccable recipes yields exceptional results. Tips on creating and adapting bread baking schedules that fit in reader's day-to-day lives-enabling them to bake the breads they love in the time they have available-make Flour Water Salt Yeast an indispensable resource for bakers, be they novices or serious enthusiasts.

Notes

A baking guide featuring scores of recipes for world-class breads and pizzas.

Author Biography

KEN FORKISH is the owner of Ken's Aritsan Pizza and Ken's Artisan Bakery, which was named one of Gourmet magazine's "Best Restaurants in America." Ken lives in Portland, Oregon.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1: The Principles of Artisan Bread
1:  The Backstory
2:  Eight Details for Great Bread and Pizza
3:  Equipment and Ingredients

Essay: Where Does Our Flour Come From?

Part 2: Basic Bread Recipes
4:  Basic Bread Method
5: Straight Doughs
6:  Doughs Made with
Pre-Ferments

Essay: The Early Morning Bread Baker's Routine

Part 3: Levain Bread Recipes
7:  Understanding Levain
8:  Levain Method
9:  Hybrid Leavening Doughs

Essay: The 3-Kilo Boule

10:  Pure Levain Doughs
11:  Advanced Levain Doughs

Essay: Making a Bread (or Pizza) Dough You Can Call Your Own

Part 4: Pizza Recipes
12:  Pizza and Focaccia Method
13:  Pizza Doughs
14:  Pizza and focaccia
 
Lagniappe

Metric Conversion Charts

Acknowledgments

Index

Review

Winner, IACP Awards 2013 - Baking: Savory or Sweet
Winner, James Beard Foundation Award 2013 - Baking and Dessert

"If books full of stunning bread porn -- all craggy crusts, yeasty bubbles and floured work surfaces -- are your thing, here's Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish."
--Eater National "Legendary Portland baker Ken Forkish (of the watershed Ken's Artisan Bakery and much-loved Ken's Artisan Pizza) has joined the ranks of the lauded letterers with his mammoth new cookbook Water Flour Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza. In Water Flour Salt Yeast, he aims to bring the spirit and quality of his famous crusty, blistered breads to the passionate home baker using those four titular ingredients."
--portlandmonthlymag.com

"Exceptionally detailed and clearly written with dedicated bakers in mind. . . . Cooks and students who are serious about the craft of bread baking will definitely want to check out this title."
--Library Journal

"Forkish's instructions are clear, concise and incredibly precise... For true artisan bread lovers -- and homemade pizza fanatics -- this book sets a new standard."
--Oregonian, June 25, 2012

"Divided into four sections ("The Principles of Artisan Bread," "Basic Bread Recipes," "Levain Bread Recipes," and "Pizza Recipes"), with recipes broken down by breads made with store-bought yeast, breads made with long-fermented simple doughs, and doughs made with pre-ferments, the book presents recipes accessible to novices, while providing a different approach for making dough to experienced bakers. Plenty of step-by-step photographs, along with a chapter outlining "Great Details for Bread and Pizza," make this slim work a rival to any bread-baking tome. A variety of pizza recipes, including sweet potato and pear pizza and golden beets and duck breast "prosciutto" pizza, (along with an Oregon hazelnut butter cookie recipe), end the title and inspire readers to put on the apron and get out the flour."
--Publishers Weekly, 6/4/2012

"Ken Forkish's story is as unique, interesting, and delicious as his famous breads and pizzas. The man abandoned his past, courageously stepped off the cliff and followed his passion, and the result has been a gift to all of us: great breads, fabulous pizzas, and now this beautiful book--Flour Water Salt Yeast--in which he reveals all."
--Peter Reinhart, author of Artisan Breads Every Day and The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking

"Ken nails it, end of story, when it comes to the best levain bread or the thinnest, most perfect pizza crust you've ever had. He has set the bar for Portland bakeries--that's why we use his bread at Le Pigeon. For anybody looking to bake amazing bread at home, this book is a must-have."
--Gabriel Rucker, chef/owner of Le Pigeon restaurant

"This fun book offers more than just top-quality bread. Flour Water Salt Yeast reveals all the formulas, processes, tips, and tricks Ken established in his years of experience as a professional baker. But most importantly, it teaches home bakers how to create their own bread using multiple schedules and ingredient combinations. Hey--all that without having to get up to bake in the middle of the night."
--Michel Suas, founder of the San Francisco Baking Institute and author of Advanced Bread and Pastry

"Ken Forkish is an artisan for our times, and the kind of 'handcraft-it-yourself' dreamer who makes Portland, Oregon, one of America's top food destinations. This book is a handsome expression of his bread-baking vision: Forkish is a man unbound, obsessed by the science of fermentation, and excitedly sharing hard-won secrets and exacting recipes from his celebrated sourdough laboratory."
--Karen Brooks, restaurant critic, Portland Monthly

Prizes

Winner of James Beard Foundation Book Awards (Baking/Desserts) 2013
Winner of IACP Crystal Whisk Award (Baking) 2013

Review Quote

Winner, IACP Awards 2013- Baking: Savory or Sweet Winner, James Beard Foundation Award 2013 -Baking and Dessert "If books full of stunning bread porn -- all craggy crusts, yeasty bubbles and floured work surfaces -- are your thing, here''s

Excerpt from Book

Introduction It''s been five hundred years since I opened Ken''s Artisan Bakery in Portland, Oregon. That''s in bakery years, of course. My bakery actually opened in 2001. I had recently left a nearly twenty-year corporate career for the freedom of running my own venture and doing something I loved. In the time leading up to this risky transition, before I knew what that venture would be, I yearned for a craft and wanted to make a living doing something I could truly call my own. But I was itchy and I didn''t know where to scratch! For many years, I waited for that lightbulb moment of awareness that would signal an open path worth taking. Then, in the mid-1990s, my best friend gave me a magazine featuring the famed Parisian baker Lionel Poil'ne. That article gave me the inspiration I was looking for. Not long after that, I began making frequent trips to Paris, and I was deeply inspired by the authentic, tradition-bound boulangeries I visited there. After a few years and a series of evolving ideas, I ended up with a perhaps naive plan to open a French bakery somewhere in the United States. My hope was to re-create the style and quality of the best breads, brioches, croissants, cannel

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