Well, after much research, I finally found an explanation for the variances
in recipes, supposedly from the same book, same author, and the same
pages!
I called the publisher, Bristol Publishing Houses, and they informed me
that, indeed, there have been two printings of the first Donna German book.
(Subsequent books may either have already, or will also be, reprinted,
too.)
Oddly, there is ABSOLUTELY nothing in the book that will tell you which
version you have. It is not identified as a reprint, update, revision, etc.
Turns out that I have the newer version of the "The Bread Machine
Bookbook" and those books that differ from mine are the original.
Apparently, as the industry has changed, and as new machines have been
introduced, Donna has updated her recipes. The primary update is that her
first book(s) were designed for 3/4 lb, 1 lb, and 1 1/2 lb machines. In the
newer book(s), the recipes are for small=1 lb, med=1 1/2 lb, and large=2
lb.
This means that you would expect to find the recipes the same for the small
in the new book and the medium in the old book, etc.
And this is the case, for some recipes. However, other recipes were totally
revised and the ratio of salt to sugar was drastically changed. Like the
Italian bread recipe on pp 33 that I questioned. It calls for 1 1/4 tsp
salt (old) vs 1/2 tsp salt (new) for the 3 cup flour version. At 1 1/4tsp
salt, I found the bread to be extremely salty! The sugar quantity also
changed.
The publisher told me that the "newer recipes should perform much better in
ALL of the machines on the market today vs the older recipes which only
worked in some machines".
I guess we'll each have to determine which is best for our tastes and our
machines. But at least we now know that there, indeed, two legitimate
copies of Donna Rathmall German's "The Bread Machine Cookbook".
I hope this helps. Thanks to all of you who checked out your books for me!
--
Ellen C.
ellen@brakes.elekta.com