Carol Field has traveled/lived/studied Italy and brought back a wealth of baking knowledge   She presents Italian bread recipes with fascinating history, warm stories, technical expertice and practicality.  One of my favorite quotes from the book would have to be “Don’t let bread baking dictate your day.” 

    The book is well written and filled with great illustrations.  While the illustrations are attractive, they are also very helpful and demonstrate visually what is written in the text.  The book is written for the American audiance but measurements are given in both metric and cups which delights me as I don’t have to convert them to metric.  Most of her recipes give directions for mixing the bread by hand, by mixer and even food processor.

    Her wonderful discussion on flours was the basis for many discussions among the Bread Baking Babes while we baked the Croccodrillo Bread.  I’ve consulted this book on innumerable occations when baking many other breads.

Breads Baked

Croccodrillo         page 116

Sicilian Bread        page 124

Pane ai Cinque Cereali con Noci    page 176

Amor Polenta (Cornmeal Cake)        page 380

perhaps not technically bread but makes divine breakfast toast

    I would highly recommend this book for anyone with minimal experience baking bread and an interest in Italian breads.