Mary's Bread Basket and Soup Kettle

Of 3 shelves full of cookbooks I have, this one is the most worn! In fact, I was looking for another hardback copy to replace mine (which I suspect was a book club version). Each of the many soups I've made from this book is not only wonderful, but is now a standard crowd-pleaser at my house! I make double batches, and freeze containersful for busy weekday nights. I'm usually a sucker for photos in cookbooks, but I trust Mary without the pictures.

After checking this book out from the Holt, MI library, I became addicted to bread making. The recipes in here are incredible and delicious. I checked this book out numerous times and was even tempted to keep it and pay the lost fine...but I couldn't do it. You have to check this book out...the breads you'll find here will make you a bread goddess/god with your friends and family! I'm not kidding.

Mary Gubser combined her experience of bread-making and teaching in writing this book, and the result is techniques and recipes that have been tested and tasted. The recipes are easy to follow, even for beginners, thanks to the excellent illustrations. An explanation of different flours and the results they give is another feature of the book. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn to made bread and also to experienced cooks who would like recipes for whole wheat, oatmeal, sourdough, wholesome dark breads, holiday and religious breads -- they are all there.

My boss gave me this book for Christmas in 1976--we shared a passion for baking, and the illustrator was a friend of his, so I have a signed copy! Over the years, I've made nearly all the recipes at least once. It's the first place I look for wonderful ideas for holiday breads. My daughter earned over $... baking the challah and the sweet muenster bread (with other favorites) by subscription one year. I taught the Sunday School bread baking with the dove of peace bread one Pentecost. I've never had a failure, either of product or response, and it's a shame this book is out of print.

This is my "bible" for breadbaking. I have had it for about 12 years and it is dog eared and "well loved" and could use a rebinding but I don't want to let it out of my kitchen. It has wonderful basic information on tools used for baking and on bread terminology and on the history of certain aspects of bread baking such as 'sour dough'. The detail in instruction leave no questions and her style puts you at ease in realizing bread making is not a science but an art that is 'forgiving' if you are willing to be patient. For example, last year when I was pregnant and suffering from 'placenta brain', I was making some french bread and set it in a warmed oven for the first rise; I came back after an hour to check it - nothing had happened. As I went back over in my mind the recipe a light went on and I lifted the plastic wrap and sniffed the dough. Sure enough I had forgotten the yeast! The most basic ingredient. Well, I have been making bread since I was 12 and read a lot of books and recipes on this subject, this book in particular had shown me that there was hope for even this dead dough's resurrection. So I 'proofed' some yeast and put the dough in the Kitchenaid and mixed the 'life' into it. I added a little more flour and cozied it back into the warmed and greased bread bowl - 3 hours later I had 2 beautiful, braided, fragrant loaves - perfect in taste and texture! I never would have attempted to rescue that dough if not for the knowledge and encouragement from this text. I hope they do a reprint sometime as I would like to have fresh copies to give my girls when they leave home and have their own kitchens to enjoy the 'art' of breadbaking in.