From a Baker's Kitchen: Techniques and Recipes for Professional Quality Baking in the Home Kitchen (

Twenty years since its first publication, From a Baker's Kitchen remains the very best single introduction to foolproof professional-quality home baking. Gail Sher--the first head baker of the celebrated Tassajara Bread Bakery in San Francisco--created more than 100 clear, foolproof, and wonderfully varied recipes, divided into two basic categories: yeasted breads, ranging from white breads to whole-wheat, rye and specialty-flour breads (including recipes for rolls and buns as well as loaves); and quick breads, covering corn breads, spoonbreads, biscuits, tea cakes, batter breads, gingerbread, and muffins. Sher also covers every ingredient: grains, leaveners, salt, liquids, shortening, eggs, and "embellishments"; equipment; and most originally, methods and principles of breadmaking, with a special discussion of her ingenious "sponge" method, which no less a baker than Rose Levy Beranbaum (The Bread Bible) has praised as crucial to her own understanding of bread baking--and which remains the most effective technique for creating flavorful bread. Over 100 drawings are also featured in this reset new edition of the all-in-one classic baking book.