Beth Hensperger

Author · 23 books

Beth Hensperger is a passionate professional- and home- baker who is both extremely creative and extraordinarily prolific as an author and developer of quality recipes. Her training included a ten-year apprenticeship as a restaurant and hotel pastry chef as well as having her own custom wedding cake business and attending classes given by some of the top bakers in America. Though restaurant trained, she considers herself more of a dedicated home baker than a chef. Beth’s writing career began when she was chosen as the Guest Cooking Instructor for the March 1985 issue of Bon Appetit. She is now the author of fifteen cookbooks, many of them best sellers. Her most recent books include: Williams Sonoma Breads (Weldon Owen), Bread For Breakfast (Ten Speed Press), and The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook (HCP). The Bread Bible (Chronicle Books) is the recipient of The James Beard Foundation Award for Baking in 2000. Beth's Basic Bread Book (Chronicle Books), a sequential text for the beginning home baker, published in the Fall of 1996, was chosen as one of the best baking books of the year by People Magazine. She has been nominated twice for the IACP Julia Child Cookbook Awards. Her books are all represented at the prestigious Culinary Collection of the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When she isn't up to her elbows in flour, Beth is a monthly food columnist with the San Jose Mercury News "Baking By the Seasons". She is a regular contributor to Cooking Pleasures, Food & Wine, Shape Magazine, Bon Appétit, Veggie Life, and Pastry Art and Design Magazines.