Those who have embarked on the adventure of homemade bread quickly noticed that the reference works produced here, in French, are extremely rare.
On the Internet, there are a few easy recipes – mainly for making traditional or instant yeast breads, like the classic No Knead Bread by Jim Lahey, renamed here “lazy bread” – but those who have wanted to dive into the sourdough adventure were quickly disillusioned. The best works come to us either from the United States or from France.
“The problem,” says Christina Blais, “is that their flours are completely different from ours. Not only does our wheat contain more protein, because of the hot and dry climate of the Prairies, but in France, for example, we name flours according to the ash content, so people are completely lost…”
She wrote this book precisely to introduce as many people as possible to the exceptional taste of sourdough bread, for which she had a real crush. A crusty bread with a fresh, honeycombed and elastic crumb, which also keeps longer than instant yeast bread. Its objective was also to explain once and for all how to “start your leaven”. A natural ferment made from flour and water that must be fed on a weekly basis.
After reading Christina’s Pain, I would bet a baguette that you will embark on this adventure again. But be careful, there is no question of writing a book exclusively on sourdough breads. Christina Blais also wanted to include instant yeast bread recipes. Because yes, sometimes we don’t have time to spend a day waiting for our sourdough to double in volume and making flaps every half hour…
To write her book, Christina consulted numerous reference works, focusing on those by Ken Forkish (Flour Water Salt Yeast – The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza) and Claus Meyer (Meyer’s Bakery – Bread and baking in the Nordic Kitchen), as well as the websites ThePerfectLoaf.com and FoodGeek.dk. We also suggest Mouni Abdelli’s book, Making your sourdough, which gave birth to Gilles.
“When writing my book, I had in mind my daughter-in-law Hélène, partner of my eldest son Alexandre. They have four kids, they’re eco-friendly, they cook a lot, but they’re short on time. So they need to have options. So yes, I wanted them to have my sourdough bread recipes, but also accessible recipes, like my easy sourdough bread, day or night, where there is only one flapping session, or even instant yeast breads. »
Everything for everyone, but done according to the rules of the art so as not to miss your bread, with a host of advice to solve your problems at each stage. This is what Christina Blais is committed to with these 60 or so bread recipes.
