Bread is an everyday staple and familiar, but A Book About Bread is exceptional and surprising. While it teaches you how to make the perfect baguette, it brings bread baking back to the basics, to understanding, feel, and intuition. Accessible and unpretentious.

Coming from a family with French and Italian ties, Issa Niemeijer-Brown grew up in a tradition of home baking and an appreciation for quality and simplicity. He chose the baking profession after first graduating cum laude as a sociologist from the UvA. After years of training at leading bakeries in the Netherlands, France, and Italy, Issa Niemeijer-Brown founded—initially with his brother—an artisanal French bakery in the heart of Amsterdam in 2008: Gebroeders Niemeijer. Today, his bakery is also internationally renowned for its croissants, patisserie, and bread.

What Plukkers thinks of this book:

For a few months, I had been trying to master bread baking with the help of books and YouTube videos. I even took a bread-baking course with Robert van Beckhoven. Although I certainly learned how to perform certain techniques correctly there, what I was missing most was the 'why.' What is actually happening in that dough? What is the difference between sourdough and yeast? And what makes a bread healthy or flavorful?

This book by Issa provided the answers to all my burning questions. Highly recommended for anyone who truly wants to understand what making bread entails. My bread bible.

– Merel @groenemuts