Mastering Bread

From a master of the artisan bread movement comes a comprehensive guide to making incredible bread at home, featuring more than 80 delicious recipes.

The Marc Vetri bread program began over a decade ago and has been part of the American movement to reclaim high-quality bread as a cornerstone of our food culture. In Mastering Bread, Vetri and his head baker, Claire Kopp McWilliams, show home cooks how to create simple breads with unique flavors in their own ovens.

Included are all the recipes for their best-selling sourdough and yeasted loaves. The process of bread making is broken down into three easy-to-digest chapters: Mix, Shape, and Bake. Another chapter called Eat includes recipes for enjoying your bread in dishes like Bruschetta, Panzanella, Strata, and Ribollita. There's even a bonus chapter revealing the secrets of Vetri's coveted Panettone.

This book shares everything that Vetri and McWilliams have learned over the years about the art and science of making incredible bread. They explain how to use fresh milled flour as well as local and regional wheat varieties with easy instructions for adapting bread recipes for success with whatever flour is available in your market. Included throughout are bios and interviews with grain and bread producers from around the nation.

Mastering Bread is a master class from an award-winning chef who makes world-class artisan bread easy to bake for both home cooks and professionals alike.

About the Authors

Trained in Bergamo, Italy, by some of the region's most noted chefs, Marc Vetri is the chef/owner of Pizzeria Vetri, Vetri Ristorante, Osteria, Amis, and Alla Spina, all located in Philadelphia. He has also opened a series of restaurants in partnership with Terrain, with locations in California and Texas.

Vetri was named one of Food & Wine's Ten Best New Chefs; he also won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic. Vetri has been profiled in Gourmet, Bon Appetit, and the New York Times, and is the author of Mastering Pasta, Il Viaggio di Vetri, and Rustic Italian Food.

Claire Kopp McWilliams is the head baker and miller for Vetri.

David Joachim is the author of the New York Times best seller A Man A Can A Plan and a co-writer on numerous cookbooks.