Old World Breads!

A former professional baker, Scheele offers tantalizing European-style bread recipes for home use. Some originated in his grandfather's bakery in Flanders, where light came from oil lamps and the only heat source was the ovens themselves. For example, Workman's bread, one of his grandfather's recipes, is an inexpensively made bran loaf that appealed to working folk. Scheele taps a variety of backgrounds and flavors here. Bulgarian buttermilk bread, Ukrainian herb bread, Scandinavian potato bread, dark Russian rye from the Baltics and Dutch sauerkraut bread are hearty and piquant. Sweeter creations include Dutch apricot loaf, apple-streusel bread, British date-walnut loaf, cinnamon-almond loaf and royal fruit bread. Cooks may want to test Scheele's trick to imitate a brick-oven effect: baking in a seasoned, red-clay, flower-pot saucer. Recipes are convincingly, although not obsessively, authentic; e.g., the stollens are not prepared in their classic shape. Those without previous bread-baking experience may need more support and details than the introduction and recipes provide. Illustrated. (May)