Description

Modernist Cuisine – Modernist Bread

What is Modernist Bread?

Making good bread is both an art and a science—Modernist Bread is a 2,642-page celebration of that and more, including bread’s future. The culmination of over four years of nonstop research, photography, experiments, writing, and baking, Modernist Bread isn’t just about new recipes, though—it’s about the way we think of bread from the ground up.

In the space of five volumes plus a recipe manual, this groundbreaking set tells the story of one of the world’s most important foods in new and different ways. Inside this book you’ll discover the science, history, cultures, and personalities behind bread, along with tools you can use to shape its future. Learn what really happens when dough is mixed, new techniques for working with preferments, strategies for making bread in any kind of oven, and innovative approaches to developing flavor—all through more than 1,200 recipes and variations to master and inspire.

Table of Contents

Modernist Bread is a book for anyone who is passionate and curious about bread, whether they are a professional baker, restaurant chef, home baker or cook, industry expert, scientist, or foodie. The ultimate resource for any baker, its pages are packed with new discoveries, insights, innovative techniques, and recipes for breads from around the world. Here’s a taste of what’s covered.
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Winner of the 2018 International Association of Culinary Professionals Jane Grigson Award for Distinguished Scholarship and Depth of Research in Cookbooks.

“Above all, the book [Modernist Bread] is a call for cooks to rethink one of the world’s oldest foods—to understand how bread is made, using more than their instinct and intuition, so they can push the craft forward.”
-The New York Times

“With three volumes on history, technique, and ingredients before the recipes even begin, Myhrvold and co-author Francisco Migoya clearly found plenty to write about.”
-The Boston Globe

“There’s no way to look at Modernist Bread and not be stunned… The contributions to bread-making here are undeniable.”
-WIRED

New Discoveries and Techniques

A faster panettone. A sweet-and-sour levain. An aha moment that transformed our ryes. Modernist Bread is the culmination of over four years of nonstop research, photography, experiments, writing, and baking. These are just some of the new insights and techniques that will surprise and delight you—and help you make better bread.
Discoveries

Bread is lighter than whipped cream
How to optimize levain for sweet breads
The sad tale of North American rye
How many bubbles are in a loaf of bread
The real reason steam makes bread crispy
How to rescue overproofed dough

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New Techniques

Bread in a jar
Easy high-hydration doughs
Sweet-and-sour levain
55°F sourdough
Challah braiding made easy with fruit juice
Compleat Wheat

History

What bread looked like through the ages
Which came first, bread or beer?
Reconstructing bread from Pompeii
The history of industrialized bread
The modern invention of baguettes
The artisanal bread movement

Experiments

Weird stuff in starters
How long does bread last in the freezer?
How much water is too much?
What is the best temperature for baking?
How much payload can dough handle?
Our take on autolyse

Debunking

Do you need to make dough with purified water?
Do you really need to knead?
Is whole-grain bread better for you than white bread?
To age or not age flour?
Is NYC tap water the key to making good bagels?
What’s really in Grandma’s starter?

Winner of the 2018 Gourmand Awards for Best Food Book of the Year in the U.S. as well as Best Cookbook Publisher in the U.S.
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Foreign Language Editions

The French, German, and Spanish translations of Modernist Bread are set to arrive in fall 2019. Preorders are now available Amazon in North America and Europe.

“Each recipe in Modernist Bread includes the basic ingredients by weight, volume and percentage, with additional tables for purees, fruits or other added ingredients. The result looks like a clinical lab experiment, but ultimately hands control of the final product over to the baker, with unexpectedly freeing results.”
-Forbes

Modernist Bread Volumes
Tour the Volumes

Discover the complete story of bread across five volumes. The first three volumes of Modernist Bread provide an in-depth look at bread’s history and fundamentals, ingredients, techniques, and equipment—they’re followed by two full volumes of recipes and a portable recipe manual.

“Advancing the state of food technology is what the ‘modernist’ in ‘Modernist Bread’ is all about.”
-Geekwire

“Something between a baker’s bible, food porn, a bread manifesto, a practical manual and a cookery book, it [Modernist Bread] leaves no bun unturned in the quest to understand bread.”
-The Financial Times

The Cooking Lab

The Cooking Lab is Modernist Cuisine’s in-house publishing division. In addition to publishing, The Cooking Lab provides consulting, R&D, and invention services to food companies and culinary equipment makers, both large and small. Their new research laboratory, operated by Intellectual Ventures, provides one of the best-equipped kitchens in the world and includes access to a full set of machining, analytical, and computational facilities. Equipped with a state-of-the-art photography studio, the team uses groundbreaking photography techniques, including in-house SEM, micro, and macro imagery.