Eight Must-Read Books to Boost Your Bakery Business and Encourage Your Pea-Pickin’ Entrepreneurial Heart
I started a boutique, commercial bakery several years ago knowing as an empty nester I had to carry on with my one, adventurous, beautiful life without children in the home.
I attained a bakery startup certificate and coupled it with my many years of making croissants, breads, cookies, cakes, and my utter obsession with the culinary arts.
This, my friends, was oh so romantic… at the start! Nowadays I say: “Note to self: never start a bakery at the age of 57!” (One of life’s little morsels of wisdom you attain if you live long enough to realize how integral it is to befriend wisdom.)
Needless to say, with my entrepreneurial spirit, my boutique bakery, ‘have pastries, will travel,’ soared to astronomical heights. I had to set grand parameters for my weekly baking as a one-woman band –which only made my product more desirable.
Not to boast, but my bread and pastries are of the highest quality, made with the most love and attention to detail, and it truly shows! Customers will always be drawn to this level of quality.
I would like to share the books that I read on the way up. I hope they will inspire you to keep going and truly excel and enjoy your passion like never before.
The Art of French Pastry
2013 Alfred Knopf/New York
Authors: Jacquy Pfeiffer with Martha Rose Shulman
This comprehensive cookbook serves as a textbook, building on the basics of French pastry and helping the reader to have a good understanding of the science of baking, ingredients, and how they work together. The precision in these recipes is exactly what’s needed to not just succeed in French baking techniques but to excel. Get yourself a good scale to ensure exact measurements, promoting the much-needed consistency in your product.
2.Understanding Baking 3. The Baker’s Manual
2003 John Wiley & Sons, Inc./New Jersey
Authors: Joseph Amendola and Nicole Rees
The first of these two manuals, Understanding Baking, is wonderful, practical information to answer all of your baking questions about flour, yeast, laminating procedures, fermentation, sugars, eggs, fats, baking physics, cakes cookies pies, and tarts.
The second, The Baker's Manual includes 150 master baking formulas for you to implement, incorporate, and build into your menu/repertoire. No bakery should be without these two instrumental resources on its shelf.
4. The Bread Builders, Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens
1999 Chelsea Green Publishing Company
Authors: Daniel Wing and Alan Scott
By far one of my favorite books about artisan breads, this informative book boasts grains, flours, leavens, dough, dough development, baking, ovens, masonry ovens and the building of masonry ovens. The passion for detail and craft shines through these artists and is contagious.
I developed my famous Wild Wyoming sourdough starter from the instructions in this very book.
5. The Pastry Chef’s Little Black Book, The Definitive Recipe Collection; For Chef’s, By Chefs
2017 The Chef’s Connection
Authors: Michael Zebrowski and Michael Mignano
Again, a must-have for any successful bakery needing great recipes that are tried and true. From doughs to chocolate, cakes to pies, mousses to confections, this perfectly laid out, BIG, black book will not fit in your pocket, but straight away on your bread bench – just within reach.
Not filled with fluffy entremets, but all the components necessary to build your bakery's signature dishes, this book is foundational and inspirational for whipping up your passions into customer favorites!
6. The War of Art, Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
2002 Black Irish Entertainment, LLC
Author: Steven Pressfield
I add this remarkable, insightful book to the list to encourage you to never forget why you do what you do. You are a passionate creative and baking is one of the most creative and challenging professions a person could ever pursue.
Owning/managing a bakery has to be something you absolutely must do. In other words, something you can’t not do. If it isn’t, you need to move on without shame or judgment and choose another profession. These pages contain great wisdom in short vignettes for easy digestion and deeper understanding.
Sectioned into three ‘books’: Resistance, Combating Resistance, and Beyond Resistance, once you’ve chewed on it long enough, it sheds light on our fears and those mysterious things that may be holding us back from reaching our full potential.
Read it every day!
7. Barefoot in Paris, Make it Ahead, Cooking for Jeffrey
2004, 2014, 2016 Clarkson Potter/Publishers, New York
Author: Ina Garten
Clear, simple, elegant cooking and baking that will enhance every menu, Ina’s recipes are easy to understand and boast quite flavorful results. Plus, if need be, you can watch step by step on her videos and shows that are broadcast everywhere.
I have baked up several different items for my menu from these easy-to-follow cookbooks which have become local favorites.
8. Baking With Julia
1996 A La Carte Communications, Inc.
Author: Dorie Greenspan
Written in conjunction with 26 bakers, with the overseeing of Julia herself, this all-purpose, how-to baking book is delightful and packed full of some of the most versatile and tasty recipes a cookbook can afford. The caliber of this book is unsurpassed with such variety and depth of flavor! Come on! It’s Julia Child and Dorie Greenspan for crying out loud!
A definite ‘must have’ for your library and an excellent book to keep on your bedside table for study in your downtime.
So, there you have it!
The Art of French Pastry
The Bakers Manual
Understanding Baking
The Bread Builders
The Pastry Chef’s Little Black Book
The War of Art
Barefoot in Paris
Baking With Julia
These books (and so many others,) launched me into a lifelong passion and joy-filled journey of no return. I hope to make such an impact on all bakers and bakeries big and small as I am in the process of authoring my own baking book.
One of my truest desires is to feed people and watch them enjoy eating my “art.” Next and perhaps even closer to my heart is the hope of encouraging all bakers with sound baking advice, and to point them in the direction of all the great bakers who have gone before us! We need each other and can learn so much more than the craft of baking from one another.
Let me encourage you in your baking endeavors and if you need a hand with your online presence or advertising, ghostwriting, recipe development, or blog writing, I can help.
Find me at: dianewhitlockagency.com and feel free to contact me for a short consultation. I’d love to talk.
