Bien Cuit: The Art of Bread (Features an Exposed Spine)

Bien Cuit introduces a new but decidedly old-fashioned approach to bread baking to the cookbook shelf. In the ovens of his Brooklyn bakery, Chef Zachary Golper bakes loaves that have quickly won over New York’s top restaurants (which serve his creations) and bread enthusiasts around the country. His secret: long, low-temperature fermentation, which allows the bread to develop deep, complex flavors and a thick, mahogany-colored crust—what the French call bien cuit, or “well baked.”

This signature style is the product of Golper’s years as a journeyman baker, from his introduction to baking on an Oregon farm—where they made bread by candlelight at 1 a.m.—through top kitchens across North and South America and, finally, into his own bakery at the heart of our country’s modern artisanal food scene. Bien Cuit tells the story of Golper’s ongoing quest to coax maximum flavor out of one of the world’s oldest and simplest recipes. Readers and amateur bakers will benefit from his curiosity and perfectionism in the form of fifty recipes for bread that cover the baking spectrum from rolls and quick breads to his famous 24-day sourdough starter.

The book is an homage to tradition, yes, but also to invention. Golper developed many of his recipes new for this book, including several “bread quests,” in which he recreates some of New York City’s most iconic breads (including Jewish rye, Kaiser rolls, and, of course, bagels) for the home baker, and an assortment of innovative “gastronomic breads” that showcase his chef’s intuition and mastery of the trade.

Golper’s defining technique—long, cold fermentation—comes at a time when American home cooks are readopting older, simpler cooking methods (especially fermentation) and championing the DIY movement. Not surprisingly, Golper’s techniques are relatively simple and easy to master, and his recipes require no modern equipment to make at home: just a bowl, an oven, and time—the dough does most of the work.