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Either of these two formulas will make a delicious rye bread, light or dark. But combined, you can weave them together to make the fabled marbled rye of childhood memories and Seinfeld fame. These are made by the direct-dough method, as opposed to the sourdough method preferred for onion rye and deli rye. But the ease of making these breads, their soft texture, and their flexibility for braiding and blending make them a favorite of my students.

Here’s a simple formula for making snappy Armenian-style crackers, perfect for breadbaskets, company, and kids. Lavash, though usually called Armenian flatbread, also has Iranian roots and is now eaten throughout the Middle East and around the world. It is similar to the many other Middle Eastern and North African flatbreads known by different names, such as mankoush or mannaeesh (Lebanese), barbari (Iranian), khoubiz or khobz (Arabian), aiysh (Egyptian), kesret and mella (Tunisian), pide or pita (Turkish), and pideh (Armenian). The main difference between these breads is either how thick or thin the dough is rolled out, or the type of oven in which they are baked (or on which they are baked, as many of these breads are cooked on stones or red-hot pans with a convex surface). Some of the breads form a pocket like a pita bread, and some, like the injera of Ethiopia and Eritrea, are thicker and serve as sponges to soak up spicy sauces. The key to crisp lavash, which is becoming one of the most popular of these flatbread variations, is to roll out the dough paper-thin. The sheet can be cut into crackers in advance or snapped into shards after baking. The shards make a nice presentation when arranged in baskets.

These are sometimes called by different names, such as New York hard rolls, bulkies, or even Vienna rolls. But the distinguishing characteristic of a kaiser roll is the star pattern on the top and a thin, slightly crisp crust that yields to the first bite and crumbles deliciously in the mouth around whatever sandwich filling it holds. Most bakeshops make them using a direct-dough method and knock them out by the thousands. This version, again pushing the limits of our newfound understanding of fermentation and enzyme activity, utilizes old dough, pâte fermentée, to improve flavor, texture, and color, making the resulting rolls significantly better than their commercial counterparts. While strangers will be complaining that they can’t find a good old-fashioned New York hard roll, you will be spoiling your friends and family with these bulkies.

In America, the term Italian bread has come to mean a loaf very similar to French bread, only usually a little softer. This has very little to do with reality, however, since scores of authentic Italian breads exist. What made the old-time Italian bakeries that were once a part of many American towns and cities special was that the bread was baked fresh daily and bought right at the shop. Today, even with the current bread revolution, much of the bread produced does not stand up to the those old Italian loaves, despite the love, care, and wonderful wood- or coal-fired ovens that we may associate with many contemporary bakeries. This is because many bakeries, smitten with innovative modern ingredients that accelerate fermentation in order to save time and increase profits, have reverted to fast-rising methods that leave much of the potential flavor and color trapped in the starches. The Italian biga pre-ferment method is a step in the direction of improving these breads, much as pâte fermentée and poolish does for French bread. The following formula pushes the biga method to its limits, and the result is an Italian bread as good as or better than any I’ve had in recent years. The use of a large amount of biga insures maximum sugar breakout from starches, evoking a sweetness that is far beyond the small amount of sugar in the formula. The finished bread will be slightly softer than French bread and less crusty.

In every book I’ve written there is a version of French bread, each attempting to close the gap between professional, artisan, and home-baked loaves. This is the best version yet and the closest, I believe, to the breads you will find at your favorite bakery. The key, as in many of these formulas, is the use of a large amount of pre-fermented dough, pâte fermentée. My best previous version required holding the shaped loaves overnight in the refrigerator, a technique that still may be applied to improve many lean, slow-rising breads. But purists object because the technique causes blisters, sometimes called bird’s-eyes, on the crust (due to carbon dioxide trapped just beneath the skin during the cold retarding stage). While I like that look, as do many consumers, it is not the way baguettes look at French boulangeries, nor most bakeshops anywhere. This new method allows you to make a full-flavored French bread, from start to finish in 4 to 5 hours (assuming you have the pâte fermentée made in advance). The pre-fermented dough gives the final dough the qualities of one that has been fermented for 7 to 9 hours, the standard of many professional operations. The crust will have a rich, reddish-gold caramelization rather than the more typical yellow-gold color of younger dough. This richer color is a result of sugars released from the starches during fermentation. The bread also exhibits a sweetness that seems as if it must be from added sugar, but all the sugar in this bread is released from within the flour, broken free of the complex starch molecules by amylase and diastase enzymes during fermentation. As with most hearth breads, another key to the success of this bread is handling it gently, retaining as much gas as possible during shaping in order to promote large, irregular holes in the crumb that, again, release maximum flavor. This large, open crumb is one of the signs of a properly handled artisan loaf.

The quality of most American focaccia is so poor that I’m surprised it has caught on as it has, being listed by a top food magazine as one of the hot food trends of the new millennium. Its survival and emergence is probably due to the few bakeries that really do it well, showcasing the honeycombed crumb that results from a properly executed rustic dough. Toppings, no matter how creative and flavorful, can never cover for an inadequate crust. This is true for pizza as well as its Ligurian cousin, focaccia. The main difference between them is that true pizza (Neapolitan) has a thin crust, while authentic focaccia has a thicker crust, but not obnoxiously thick as seen in some American renditions. I prefer a thickness of 1 to 1 1/4 inches, with big, open, translucent holes, like a ciabatta or pugliese. There is really only one way to achieve such perfection, and that is through long fermentation by either generous use of pre-fermented dough or by retarding the fermentation process through refrigeration. Either method will get you there, so I offer you two formulas. The results are comparable and demonstrate the possibilities presented by time and temperature manipulation. Following the formulas are some suggestions for variations and toppings.

This bread, with its big, shiny holes and amorphous shape, has taken America by storm, just as it did Italy during the past fifty years. Though it hails from an age-old tradition of rustic, slack-dough breads, the name ciabatta was not applied to this loaf until the mid-twentieth century by an enterprising baker in the Lake Como region of northern Italy. He observed that the bread resembled a slipper worn by dancers of the region and thus dubbed his loaf ciabatta di Como (slipper bread of Como). A new tradition was born. During the second half of the century, this ciabatta became the unofficial national bread of Italy, so closely identified is it with the chewy, rustic peasant breads of the Italian countryside. As with pugliese bread, the dough is not unlike that of many other Italian and French rustic breads, including pizza and focaccia, and can thus be made into many shapes other than the Lake Como slipper.

This bread, with its big, shiny holes and amorphous shape, has taken America by storm, just as it did Italy during the past fifty years. Though it hails from an age-old tradition of rustic, slack-dough breads, the name ciabatta was not applied to this loaf until the mid-twentieth century by an enterprising baker in the Lake Como region of northern Italy. He observed that the bread resembled a slipper worn by dancers of the region and thus dubbed his loaf ciabatta di Como (slipper bread of Como). A new tradition was born. During the second half of the century, this ciabatta became the unofficial national bread of Italy, so closely identified is it with the chewy, rustic peasant breads of the Italian countryside. As with pugliese bread, the dough is not unlike that of many other Italian and French rustic breads, including pizza and focaccia, and can thus be made into many shapes other than the Lake Como slipper.

This bread, with its big, shiny holes and amorphous shape, has taken America by storm, just as it did Italy during the past fifty years. Though it hails from an age-old tradition of rustic, slack-dough breads, the name ciabatta was not applied to this loaf until the mid-twentieth century by an enterprising baker in the Lake Como region of northern Italy. He observed that the bread resembled a slipper worn by dancers of the region and thus dubbed his loaf ciabatta di Como (slipper bread of Como). A new tradition was born. During the second half of the century, this ciabatta became the unofficial national bread of Italy, so closely identified is it with the chewy, rustic peasant breads of the Italian countryside. As with pugliese bread, the dough is not unlike that of many other Italian and French rustic breads, including pizza and focaccia, and can thus be made into many shapes other than the Lake Como slipper. You can make this dough with a large amount of either poolish or biga, and formulas for both versions follow. It can also be made with the addition of milk and olive oil to tenderize the dough. In other words, there are many variations, all valid, and as long as you make a slipper shape you can call it ciabatta. Since writing Crust & Crumb, I have continued to fine-tune these rustic breads, pushing the limits of time and temperature manipulation, trying to evoke every bit of flavor trapped in the flour. In the pain à l’ancienne formula, we will make a similar dough but with no pre-ferment and a long cold fermentation. Each variation in technique brings forth slightly different flavor tones from the wheat, and everyone seems to have their own preferences. In this version, the use of 165 to 180 percent pre-ferment seems to be the magic amount to maximize a same-day bread in a 4- to 5-hour window. It yields a slightly acidic and yeasty edge, a flavor that many people love. They say, “This tastes like real bread!” I have found little difference between the biga and poolish versions; both are amazing

Challah, the braided Sabbath bread of Judaism, is a European celebratory loaf symbolic of God’s goodness and bounty. The braids traditionally separate the loaf into twelve distinct sections representing the twelve tribes of Israel. The use of eggs in the bread was probably a way to use up excess eggs before the strict Judaic Sabbath day of rest made it impossible to harvest the new eggs, as harvesting is one of many activities considered work in Orthodox Jewish communities. I’ve made challah many different ways, but this is a great formula that produces a soft golden loaf, radiant when brought to the table. The key to a beautiful challah, one that stops conversation and holds everyone’s attention, is to braid it so that it is tapered at the ends and plump in the middle.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who like chewy water bagels and those who prefer softer steamed bagels. Having grown up on the East Coast in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, I am naturally inclined toward what I think of as the true bagel, the thick-crusted, dense, boiled version, called the water bagel because it is poached in a kettle of boiling alkalized water. (I also like egg bagels, which are made by adding eggs as an enrichment to the dough but, nevertheless, are boiled.) Most people who like the new style of softer bagels, and there are many such adherents, do not realize that what makes them so big and soft is that they are a softer dough, formed after a long proofing. This makes them impossible to boil because they are too airy to sustain their shape in the roiling cauldron. They are perfect for commercial steam-injected rotating rack ovens, however, because they do not have to be handled twice. (The oven lifts the entire rack of sheet pans and rotates it for even baking, after blasting it with a bath of steam to replace the boiling.) According to folklore, bagels were invented in seventeenth-century Austria as a tribute to the wartime victories of King Jan of Poland, and were modeled after the stirrup of his saddle. They were a bread for the masses, popular also in Germany and Poland, but they were introduced into the United States by German and Polish Jewish immigrants, so we think of them as a Jewish bread. Now, because of the softer steamed versions, bagels have once again become a bread for the masses. However, the modern steaming method lends fuel to the debate of authenticity and battles against our nostalgic desire for the real deal. Everyone who loves bagels seems to have a theory as to why even properly boiled bagels seem to fall short of those memories. Some think it depends on the quality of the water. “New York bagels can’t be duplicated because of that great New York water,” say New Yorkers, while others think it has something to do with the quality of the flour, or whatever else they put into the kettle to flavor the crust. Others blame the automatic bagel-shaping machines invented by Tom Atwood in the 1950s. (Prior to that, Tom, now in his eighties, told me, all bagels were shaped by hand using the wrap-around method shown on page 120.) My theory is that nothing can top the taste of memory, but it is quite possible to find and make bagels every bit as good as in yesteryear, though never as good as those of our memories. As a professional baker, a bread instructor, and a water-bagel guy, I’ve been working on making the perfect bagel for a number of years. Just as the steam technique is a totally modern innovation that opened the bagel to the mainstream marketplace, there are many techniques that are now available to both professional and home bakers that did not exist in the days of King Jan. Even the bagel bakers of our parents’ generation did not fully understand bread science as we now know it, though their feel for the product and their intuition was sharpened to a fine edge. What I have been working on is the application of some of the artisan techniques recently introduced by the new generation of bread bakers to the production of a definitive water bagel good enough to challenge our childhood memories and overcome our nostalgic biases. You will have to be the judge. This version is, I believe, an improvement on the formula given in Crust & Crumb, which I thought at the time was as good as it gets. This version uses an easier-to-make sponge, yet still provides the overnight fermentation that maximizes flavor. My students at Johnson & Wales University are too young to have had a “good old days” experience with bagels, so even though they love these bagels, their frame of reference is limited. But my wife Susan who, like me, grew up in the food and bagel mecca of Philadelphia, and some of my friends who grew up in New York C...

Now that I live in New England again, after twenty-two years in California, I felt duty bound to revisit one of the great New England breads, anadama, and to come up with a definitive version. There are conflicting stories of the origin of the name. Judith and Evan Jones, in their wonderful The Book of Bread, tell the story of a Rockport, Massachusetts, man who was upset with his wife not only for leaving him, but also for leaving behind only a pot of cornmeal mush and some molasses. The angry husband tossed the mush and molasses together with some yeast and flour and muttered, “Anna, damn ’er!” This was later amended by the more genteel local Yankees, as they retold the story, to anadama. Sounds likely to me. Traditional formulas for this bread are usually given as a direct-dough method, but this version utilizes a soaker and a sponge to evoke more flavor from the grain. Corn is chock-full of natural sugars, trapped in the complex carbohydrate starch base, so any trick we can employ to break the sugars free can only improve the already wonderful flavor.

You’ll be transported back to Grandma’s kitchen when you smell this homey dish as it cooks. The leftovers are excellent for sandwiches and recipes calling for cooked lean beef, such as Vegetable Beef Soup (page 68).

A delicately sweet reduction of red wine, mushrooms, tomato sauce, and herbs crowns tender beef slices.

Add a touch of Provence by applying a rub of thyme, marjoram, rosemary, and sage to sirloin steak.