BREAD IN HALF THE TIME

Bread in half the time
by Linda West Eckhardt and Diani Collingwood Butts

This is ‘the’ bread book on using your microwave oven to speed up the rising process and thus reduce the time taken to make bread from start to finish.  It is a massive book and loaded with clear illustrations and instructions on the micro-rise process.  The sub-title is ‘Use your microwave and food processor to make real yeast bread in 90 minutes’, and although while it may take a little longer than that while getting used to the new routine, it is still much quicker than the classic method of making yeasted bread.

This book is enjoyable both to read and to use, and the micro-rise approach is actually quite straightforward once the basic concepts are grasped.  It is important to follow the instructions about determining the length of time to heat the dough in your microwave, as microwave ovens do vary in their strength.  It’s exciting to see the dough rise so quickly, before your eyes.  There is a different rhythm to the bread making process, and being rewarded with fresh and tasty bread so soon is very satisfying.

The introductory section is quite detailed, with helpful information on the usual bread making ingredients (flour, salt, sugar, yeast, eggs, fat) as well as the range of kitchen utensils that can be used in making micro-rise bread.  More exciting is the wide range of recipes for using the micro-rise process, which fills about 200 pages.  Included next to the recipes are quotes, antecdotes, bread facts and associated recipes which enhance the book’s appeal.  Who would have thought you could make black bread as well as French bread, pizza dough and fougasse using a food processor and microwave?

The remainder of the book is devoted to bread machine recipes, primarily with the bread machine mixing and rising the dough, then shaping by hand before baking.  The multiple illustrations showing how to shape various breads are very clear and helpful.  Recipes include basic breads to health breads, brunch breads to flatbreads, bagels and buns to sweet breads.

This is a work book, and not one for the coffee table.  Be prepared to have it open in the kitchen and point floury fingers to the page for the next instruction until you get the hang of it. If you enjoy trying out new techniques, or want your bread ready in a shorter amount of time, then this book is well worth having.  The 160 plus recipes are enormously varied, so there is also sure to be inspiration to get into the kitchen and try out some new flavour combinations.