Biographical note:

Andy and Jackie King are professionally-trained bakers who started A&J King Artisan Bakers bakery in Salem in 2006. They both attended the New England Culinary Institute where they met. Andy worked at the James Beard Award Winning restaurant Arrows and then both Andy and Jackie worked at Maine’s premiere artisan bakery, Standard Baking Co. before starting their own bakery closer to home.

Main description:

Make the Best Bread at Home with Just Your Hands

Nothing beats the intoxicating smell of freshly baked bread. But what if you could create those beautiful artisan loaves in the most traditional way possible: with just your own two hands?

Baking by Hand shows you how to do just that. Keep your mixer in the closet as Andy and Jackie King teach you long-forgotten methods that are the hallmarks of their exceptional bakery. They’ll take you through all of the steps of making amazing bread, from developing your own sourdough culture, to mixing by hand, traditional shaping techniques and straight on to the final bake. Most importantly, you’ll learn the Four-Fold technique—the key to making the kind of bread at home that will simply be top tier in any setting.

In this book, Andy and Jackie feature their stand out bakery recipes, including favorites such as their North Shore Sourdough, a perfectly crusted and open-crumbed Ciabatta, and their earthy, healthy and wonderful Multigrain loaf. And that’s only half the story. The Kings also offer up techniques and recipes for their much-loved pastries like Concord Grape Pies and Rhubarb-Ginger Tarts, combining seasonality, locality and a passion for fresh ingredients. And they’re all ready for you to make—without a mixer.

A&J King Artisan Bakers is located in Salem, Massachusetts.

Review quote:

"What we need are bakeries like [A&J King] in every town and village."

—JEFFREY HAMELMAN, director of the King Arthur Bakery, bestselling author of Bread, which won the Julia Child Award, recipient of the Bread Bakers Guild of America’s Golden Baguette Award and past coach and member of the gold-medal winning Baking Team USA

 

"Andy and Jackie make absolutely the only bread I would put in front of my guests. [They] truly are masters of their craft."

—TONY BETTENCOURT, chef of Sixty2 on Wharf (Salem, MA), and featured on Bravo TV’s Rocco’s Dinner Party

 

"I haven’t seen baking like this since I worked in France."

—JAMES MARTIN, author, celebrity chef and host of the Good Food Channel’s United Cakes of America

 

"Andy and Jackie King have built a hugely successful business because of the quality of their bread, pastries and desserts. Our customers rave about them."

—AMELIA & NICO MONDAY, The Market Restaurant (Annisquam, MA), featured in Food & Wine magazine

 

"Set foot inside a great restaurant and the feeling is usually admiration, even awe. Enter a great bakery like A&J King, and it’s more like giddiness...did we say giddiness? We meant love."

—BOSTON MAGAZINE, Best of Boston Award

 

"Cooks will find Baking By Hand an invaluable addition to their cookbook collection."

—NINA SIMONDS, author of Spices of Life and food journalist