by Ken Forkish
There are few things more satisfying than biting into a freshly made, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-and-supple-on-the-inside slice of perfectly baked bread. For Portland-based baker Ken Forkish, well-made bread is more than just a pleasure—it is a passion that has led him to create some of the best and most critically lauded breads and pizzas in the country.
In Flour Water Salt Yeast, Forkish translates his obsessively honed craft into scores of recipes for rustic boules and Neapolitan-style pizzas, all suited for the home baker. Forkish developed and tested all of the recipes in his home oven, and his impeccable formulas and clear instructions result in top-quality artisan breads and pizzas that stand up against those sold in the best bakeries anywhere.
Whether you’re a total beginner or a serious baker, Flour Water Salt Yeast has a recipe that suits your skill level and time constraints: Start with a straight dough and have fresh bread ready by supper time, or explore pre-ferments with a bread that uses biga or poolish. If you’re ready to take your baking to the next level, follow Forkish’s step-by-step guide to making a levain starter with only flour and water, and be amazed by the delicious complexity of your naturally leavened bread. Pizza lovers can experiment with a variety of doughs and sauces to create the perfect pie using either a pizza stone or a cast-iron skillet.
Flour Water Salt Yeast is more than just a collection of recipes for amazing bread and pizza—it offers a complete baking education, with a thorough yet accessible explanation of the tools and techniques that set artisan bread apart. Featuring a tutorial on baker’s percentages, advice for manipulating ingredients ratios to create custom doughs, tips for adapting bread baking schedules to fit your day-to-day life, and an entire chapter that demystifies the levain-making process, Flour Water Salt Yeast is an indispensable resource for bakers who want to make their daily bread exceptional bread.
There are few things more satisfying than biting into a freshly made, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-and-supple-on-the-inside slice of perfectly baked bread. For Portland-based baker Ken Forkish, well-made bread is more than just a pleasure—it is a passion that has led him to create some of the best and most critically lauded breads and pizzas in the country.
In Flour Water Salt Yeast, Forkish translates his obsessively honed craft into scores of recipes for rustic boules and Neapolitan-style pizzas, all suited for the home baker. Forkish developed and tested all of the recipes in his home oven, and his impeccable formulas and clear instructions result in top-quality artisan breads and pizzas that stand up against those sold in the best bakeries anywhere.
Whether you’re a total beginner or a serious baker, Flour Water Salt Yeast has a recipe that suits your skill level and time constraints: Start with a straight dough and have fresh bread ready by supper time, or explore pre-ferments with a bread that uses biga or poolish. If you’re ready to take your baking to the next level, follow Forkish’s step-by-step guide to making a levain starter with only flour and water, and be amazed by the delicious complexity of your naturally leavened bread. Pizza lovers can experiment with a variety of doughs and sauces to create the perfect pie using either a pizza stone or a cast-iron skillet.
Flour Water Salt Yeast is more than just a collection of recipes for amazing bread and pizza—it offers a complete baking education, with a thorough yet accessible explanation of the tools and techniques that set artisan bread apart. Featuring a tutorial on baker’s percentages, advice for manipulating ingredients ratios to create custom doughs, tips for adapting bread baking schedules to fit your day-to-day life, and an entire chapter that demystifies the levain-making process, Flour Water Salt Yeast is an indispensable resource for bakers who want to make their daily bread exceptional bread.
Reviews-
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June 4, 2012
Owner of Ken’s Artisan Pizza and Ken’s Artisan Bakery in Portland, Ore., Forkish begins by telling of the trials and tribulations of opening up shop (people didn’t want to pay $2.50 for a cup of herbal tea). 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. -
August 1, 2012
Forkish--chef and owner of Ken's Artisan Bread and Ken's Artisan Pizza in Portland, OR--is passionate about baking; he's still nurturing a levain he started in 1999. His first book is exceptionally detailed and clearly written with dedicated bakers in mind. Home cooks who intend to make a quick loaf of bread once every six months may enjoy some of the recipes, but to treat this title like a multipurpose cookbook to be used on occasion is like taking a class from da Vinci but only using paint-by-number sets. That said, Forkish is aware of the limitations home cooks will face and is careful to address concerns about temperature, schedules, ingredients, and more. In addition to history, methods, and tips, Forkish provides several unique recipes, including Pain Au Bacon, Walnut Levain, Sweet Potato and Pear Pizza, and Zucchini Focaccia. VERDICT There's a reason for the phrase "daily bread"--making bread from scratch was a way of life for centuries. Cooks and students who are serious about the craft of bread baking will definitely want to check out this title.--Rosemarie Lewis, Georgetown Cty. Lib., SC
Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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August 1, 2012
No matter how it's sliced, baking bread is, well, hard. It requires lots of equipment, patience, and precise measurements. Portland, Oregon, baker-restaurateur and James Beard Award finalist Forkish does his absolute best to take us step-by-step through this mixture of art, science, and luck. Give him kudos for explaining the eight details to master for the best outcomes: think of time and temperature as ingredients; use pre-ferments when time allows; use the autolyse method; mix a wet slack dough; allow for complete bulk fermentation; handle dough gently; proof perfectly to point; and bake until dark brown. And more kudos for insisting on instructional-process photographs throughout to guide us and for peppering the pages with clear definitions of such bread-ology terms as miche, levain, retarder, and poolish, to specify just a few. He generously shares more than 30 recipes, and he embeds fun in the mix, such as his description of his transition from Silicon Valley. Difficult to master? For sure. But motivational as well.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.) -
Eater National
"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."
- portlandmonthlymag.com, September 18, 2012 "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 cookbookWater 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."
- Library Journal "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."
- Oregonian, June 25, 2012 Forkish's instructions are clear, concise and incredibly precise... For true artisan bread lovers -- and homemade pizza fanatics -- this book sets a new standard."
- Peter Reinhart, author of Artisan Breads Every Day and The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking "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."
- Gabriel Rucker, chef/owner of Le Pigeon restaurant "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."
- Michel Suas, founder of the San Francisco Baking Institute and author of Advanced Bread and Pastry "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."
