The Model Bakery Cookbook: 75 Favorite Recipes from the Beloved Napa Valley Bakery Author: Visit Amazon's Karen Mitchell Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1452113831 | Format: PDF
The Model Bakery Cookbook: 75 Favorite Recipes from the Beloved Napa Valley Bakery Description
Review
"Model Bakery is much more than the wonderful bread they bake. It's part of the breakfasts I sneak with my wife and kids, the holder of my addiction to English muffins, and the first thing to grace the table at Bottega. In short, Model Bakery is a part of everybody and everything I love in the Napa Valley. Enjoy this book and it will be a part of yours too." -- Michael Chiarello, Chef/Owner of Bottega and Chiarello Family Vineyards
"This wonderful book is a perfect reflection of Karen Mitchell's passion for baking and her many years in the business. Her clear, easy-to-follow directions will instill in anyone who loves to bake, the confidence to achieve professional results every time." -- Flo Braker, author, baking instructor, former San Francisco Chronicle baking columnist
"Karen Mitchell is the queen of bread and sweets in the Napa Valley. How lucky we are to have her irresistible treats collected into this beautiful cookbook." -- Carol Field, author of the Italian Baker
About the Author
Rick Rodgers is the author of more than 35 cookbooks and is based in New York City.
Karen Mitchell opened the Model Bakery in 1984 and lives in Napa Valley, California. Sarah Mitchell Hansen expanded the bakery to the Oxbow Public Market in 2008 and lives in Napa Valley, California.
Frankie Frankeny is a photographer and film director based in San Francisco, California.
- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Chronicle Books; 10.2.2013 edition (September 17, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1452113831
- ISBN-13: 978-1452113838
- Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.2 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
I haven't had the pleasure of visiting the Model Bakery (I briefly visited California for the first time last year), but I learned about their eponymous cookbook on Rick Rodgers' Facebook page (Rick is one of the book's authors; his amazing Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague is one of my favorite pastry books out of the dozens I own). I was instantly drawn in by the many classic recipes for breads, yeasted sweets (croissants, pain au chocolat, bear claws, cinnamon rolls), cakes, cookies, pies and tarts. These are simple, traditional, dependable recipes (no fancy flavorings, rare ingredients, or unusual baking equipment required!) that will be sure to delight.
With a straightforward table of contents that conveniently fits on one page, it's easy to quickly locate recipes. Each chapter ends with a helpful "how-to" section that addresses certain aspects of food science (fermentation, enzymes, wet vs. dry doughs) and practical tips and tricks that will be especially helpful to new bakers (baking one sheet of cookies at a time for best results, parchment paper instead of silicone mats for crisper cookies). A compact look at ingredients (Karen and Sarah recommend Guittard French Vanilla as their chocolate of choice, whole-fat dairy instead of reduced fat, and European-style butter with a high butterfat content) and basic equipment will start bakers off on the right foot. For instance, they point out that "the thin and shiny cookie sheets that many home bakers have encourage burned cookie bottoms." Instead, they recommend using half- and quarter-sheet pans.
There may be a lot to like about this cookbook, but you're going to have to squint to find out. The type face is incredibly small, so the (interesting) stories require a lot of work to get through. Even the recipes are set up as if the goal was to use as few pages as possible. The recipes use a three-column layout. The first column lists the ingredients (including metric measurements) in the tiny typeface, The only concession to readability is making the type bold. The layout means that each step is paragraph length. Forget about laying the book on the counter and glancing over at it -- only the sharpest eyes will be able to accomplish this feat. I can only guess that their goal was to keep recipes to one page, but at what cost?
The photography is lovely, and many of the recipes look delicious, but there are some quirks that give me pause.
The oddest bit for me is their insistence that you use fine sea salt in their recipes because "some palates" can detect additives in table salt. I guess these "palates" must not be the people they mention who are surprised at the espresso present in some of the chocolate recipes. Sorry, but espresso doesn't hide. Those of us who love chocolate but hate coffee have learned to be wary of any deep chocolate dessert served in any trendy restaurant.
Their recipes for cakes are for 8" three-layer cakes, with the single exception of a carrot cake recipe, a type of cake they explain is much better as a two-layer cake. I suspect most home cooks do not want to regularly produce three-layer cakes, especially when they have to store them. (My cake keeper is much better with two-layer cakes. Ironically, I do own three 8" pans so I can make one of my favorite recipes ... a carrot cake!
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