Bread is daily 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, feeling and intuition. Accessible and without pretension.

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

What Plukkers thinks of this book:

For a few months I had been trying to master baking bread, with the help of books and YouTube videos. I even took a bread baking course with Robert van Beckhoven. Although I certainly learned to perform certain actions correctly, I mainly missed the why. What happens in that dough? What is the difference between sourdough and yeast? And what makes a loaf of bread healthy or tasty?

This book by Issa answered all my burning questions. A must for anyone who really wants to understand what bread making entails. My bread bible.

– Merel @groenemuts