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Beginner or more experienced baker. We all look for advice, recipes, or simply a good read.

 

There are endless books for sourdough bakers, and we all have our preferred publications. But it’s sometimes good to look at the alternatives, full of good ideas or inspiration. If you’re like us, your reading interests change with time, and you might find yourself looking for something new.

Here we’ve put together a selection of some of the books recommended by our members.  They may help you to decide which ones are for you.

The list is not exhaustive, so if you have other recommendations you think should be here, please let us know.

 

 

Whole Grain Sourdough at Home

In Whole Grain Sourdough at Home, Elaine Boddy shares all of her secrets with you. Elaine’s master recipe and philosophy for bread making are all about simplicity, flexibility and having fun. Sourdough does not have to be complicated or require a lot of hands-on work to be great. 

Elaine Boddy: 
The Simple Way to Bake Artisan Bread with Whole Wheat, Einkorn, Spelt, Rye and Other Ancient Grains

Purchase via the Group Store

Tartine Bread

A bread bible for the home baker or professional bread-maker. Clear instructions and hundreds of step-by-step photos put you by Chad’s side as he shows you how to make exceptional and elemental bread using just flour, water, and salt.

Chad Robertson: 

Artisan bread cookbook, best recipes, sourdough book

Purchase via the Group Store

Artisan Sourdough Made Simple

With the continuing popularity of the whole foods movement, home cooks are returning to the ancient practice of bread baking, and sourdough is rising to the forefront. Through fermentation, sourdough bread is easier on digestion―often enough for people who are sensitive to gluten―and healthier. Artisan Sourdough Made Simple gives everyone the knowledge and confidence to join the fun, from their first rustic loaf to beyond. This book has 65 recipes and 65 photos.

Emilie Raffa: 

A beginners guide to delicious handcrafted bread with minimal kneading

Purchase via the Group Store

Starter Sourdough

This guide simplifies the process of making your own starter so it’s accessible to anyone, no matter your skill level. Keep your tasty new creation alive and thriving with the help of clear instructions accompanied by beautiful photographs. Then try your hand at baking Perfect Italian Sourdough, Sourdough Marble Rye Bread, Double Piecrust, Sourdough Pretzels, Sourdough Cinnamon-Sugar Doughnuts, and more.

Carroll Pellegrinelli: 

The Step-by-Step Guide to Sourdough Starters, Baking Loaves, Baguettes, Pancakes, and More

Purchase via the Group Store

The Sweet Side of Sourdough

You’ve mastered a basic boule and perhaps ventured into a savoury sourdough focaccia, but have you tried your hand at a scrumptious Peach and Ricotta Focaccia or decadent Orange-Pistachio Caramel Sticky Buns? Pastry Chef extraordinaire Caroline Schiff is here to show you all the creative (and delicious!) ways you can put your sourdough starter―both active starter and discard―to good use in recipes sure to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Caroline Schiff: 

Transform your idea of what sourdough baking can be

Purchase via the Group Store

The Art of Sourdough Scoring

A gorgeous and comprehensive guide to all things sourdough scoring. With lush full-page photography, step-by-step tutorials and expert tips, Brittany covers every skill you’ll need to successfully create one-of-a-kind patterns on your loaves. Learn how the depth and timing of your cuts can affect the way your lines bake and burst, and never be disappointed by deflated dough again as Brittany’s calm, encouraging voice guides you through a huge variety of dazzling designs.

Brittany Wood: 

Make every loaf a work of art

Purchase via the Group Store

The Sourdough Whisperer

Renowned sourdough “whisperer” and member of our FB group, Elaine Boddy shares her best recipes and advice to help home bakers understand the breadmaking process and master a wide variety of sourdoughs with confidence. All Your Sourdough Questions Answered Plus 40 Endlessly Versatile Recipes In the sourdough world.

Elaine Boddy: 
The Sourdough Whisperer: The Secrets to No-Fail Baking with Epic Results

Purchase via the Group Store

The Sourdough School

Achieve the delicious crust and addictive tang of a homemade sourdough loaf with this comprehensive guide from expert Vanessa Kimbell. At her renowned Sourdough School, Vanessa has taught countless students the secrets of this healthy, more easily digestible bread, and now she has compiled her teachings for the home baker. From creating your own starter from scratch, you’ll then move on to basic breadmaking techniques, before progressing to using sprouted grains and experimenting with flavors to produce Fig and Earl Grey and Cherry Plum loaves.

Vanessa Kimbell: 
The ground breaking guide to making gut-friendly bread

Purchase via the Group Store

The French Baker's War. A Novel

Occupied France, 1943. Returning home from the daily hunt for the rationed ingredients necessary to keep his family pâtisserie open, André Albert finds his four-year-old son in the street, his wife gone, and a Jewish escapee cowering behind the display case.

Michael Whatling: 
“A fascinating story. One of the best I have read in a long time”

Purchase via the Group Store

Sourdough Cookbook for Beginners

This sourdough cookbook pairs simple instructions with tutorial photos, covering the first 6 days of bringing your starter to life and helping it thrive. Explore the science of how sourdough starters make bread rise along with how to prep your kitchen, plus tips and tricks you may have seen on Breadtopia. Then, try your hand at dozens of crusty artisan-style breads, flavored pan loaves, pastry, pizza, and even unique baked goods you can make with the leftover starter!

Eric Rusch: 
A Sourdough Cookbook from the creator of Breadtopia

Purchase via the Group Store

Sourdough Baking with Kids

Each recipe in this book includes different ingredients, colors, and techniques for parents and kids to craft their own bread loaves together. Along the way, families can pick up breadcrumbs such as changes to observe in the dough, fun facts about bread around the world, and little lessons on the patience and discipline behind the process.

Natalya Syanova: 
Introduce your kids (or just yourself) to the secrets behind sourdough baking, a tradition the whole family can enjoy together.

Purchase via the Group Store

Disclaimer: Whilst we hope the information provided is helpful and informative, we cannot guarantee that all details will be 100% accurate.  There are many schools of thought and conflicting ideas on many of the sourdough processes and methods.  This site is simply meant as a broad guide to baking sourdough, and is not a scientific reference.

Also, please forgive the mixed US and UK spellings throughout. We have a team from various countries working on this site.This site may contain affiliate links. 

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Lame

noun

A special sharp knife, or tool which holds a razor blade, in a curved or straight manner. You use it to score the dough before baking.

Dutch Oven

A Dutch Oven is generally understood to be a covered earthenware or cast-iron container for cooking casseroles. They are ideal for bread as they can accommodate bread dough and be covered to help generate the steamy environment requiredto encourage the dough to rise. Enamel roasters with a lid, covered pyrex dishes, or even a flat tray with a bowl over the top of the dough, are equally effective.

Bakers’ Percentages

Sometimes called baker’s math, this is a method to express the different ingredients as a percentage of the total amount of flour. It makes scaling a recipe or building a recipe very easy once you know the total weight of the flour, and also allows you to know the ‘hydration’ of your dough.

Example: If you build your dough with 1000 gram flour, 670-grams water, 20-gram salt, and 8-gram yeast. According to bakers percentages, that will be 100% flour (the amount of flour is always 100%), 67% water, 2% salt, and 0.8% yeast.
You divide the amount of the different ingredients with the amount of flour.

Banneton / Brotform / Proofing Basket

A type of basket or container used to provide structure for shaped loaves of bread during proofing. Banneton baskets are also known as ‘Brotform’ or ‘proofing baskets’. It is normally used for doughs that are too soft or wet to maintain their shape while rising. They come in a range of sizes and shapes. Look for ones that fit the size of loaves you want to bake.

They are often made of natural rattan, or wood fiber. You can also use any container lined with a well-floured tea towel.

Oven Spring

The final burst of expansion of dough upon being introduced to a hot oven and where the yeast activity is increased during the first few minutes. At approximately 60C/140ºF degrees the yeast is killed off, but up until that point, dough can expand in the oven in the first phase of baking if it’s not over-fermented and still has dough strength. Many factors can impact oven spring including the length of fermentation, gluten development, and the hydration of the dough.

Stretch-and-Folds

An alternative to traditional kneading used to develop gluten. The process is performed periodically in the bowl throughout the bulk fermentation. Take a side of the dough and gently stretch it up and over, to fold it upon itself, rotate the dough 90º, and repeat, then turn the bowl 45º and the same stretch and fold. Once all four corners of the dough have been stretched and folded, gluten development and a smooth, elastic dough are underway. Also, see ‘Folding’ and ‘Coil Folds’.

Bulk Ferment

Most loaves have two fermenting cycles. One before and one after the loaves are formed. Bulk fermentation is the first cycle, with a long fermentation period of the dough after the initial mixing of flour, water, starter, and salt and often comes during and after a period of kneading or ‘stretch and folds’.During this stage we are aiming to create dough strength, structure and flavor. The dough should feel alive, strong, airy, spongy and the surface shouldn’t feel sticky.

The bulk fermentation generally takes place at room temperature, unless otherwise noted in the recipe and is a longer period of time (4 -12 hours) than the final proofing period. This step may be referred to as the first prove or first rising. Acetic acid, an organic acid is produced by bacteria in the sourdough culture during the fermentation process. The presence of acetic acid helps to gives sourdough its characteristic acidic tang. The warmer the environment, the faster the development of the dough will be

Window Pane

The window pane test is one of the best ways to tell if you’ve sufficiently stretched and folded your bread dough. Pull a small piece of the dough and using both hands and your fingers stretch the dough very thin if it holds its shape without tearing the gluten is well-developed and your dough is ready to be pre-shaped, shaped and rest for it’s final prove.

Starter / Starter Culture / Sourdough Starter

A mixture of flour and water used to leaven bread that contains bacteria, yeast, and organic acids. Made either by inoculating with an established colony of bacteria or by capturing wild bacteria and yeasts over a longer period. Sometimes also called Leaven / Levain.

Autolyse

verb

Autolyse (pronounced auto-lees) is a process in which a portion of (or total) water and flour in a bread recipe are gently pre-blended and set to rest for a period of time.

This resting period gives the dough special processing characteristics and improves the overall quality of the baked goods.

During autolyse process, several events can occur in the pre-mixed water/flour mixture:

  1. Continued flour hydration. Water molecules work their way into damaged starch, intact starch granules and proteins.
  2. Protein bonds continue to develop as a consequence of adding water, creating more gluten strands without mechanical work. This leads to better gluten structure and gas retention.
  3. Flour enzymes (mainly proteases) acquire time to adapt and work on the gluten by breaking down protein bonds.Protease activity is higher at low pH (acidic conditions). This is why autolysed doughs that contain yeast or pre-ferments (e.g. poolish) often experience greater protease activity. Such doughs are more extensible, weaker, softer and show less resistance to deformation than autolyzed non-fermented doughs.2
  4. Finally, as a result, the dough feels less sticky and very smooth after the autolyse.

As a general rule, the longer the autolyse time:

  • The shorter the dough mixing time (less mechanical development of gluten-forming proteins in needed). This means less energy consumption during mixing.
  • The shorter the dough stability duration
  • The less tolerance to overmixing. Breakdown is more pronounced once peak (maximum strength) is attained.
  • The smaller the P value in the alveograph test
  • The more extensible and less elastic the dough becomes at the end of autolysis
  • The better the sheetability and machining of dough during lamination of croissants
  • The easier and faster the dough expands during oven spring (better volume)
  • The lower the need for dough conditioners
  • The better the flavor and aroma of the finished product
Leaven/Levain/Sourdough Starter
noun
  1. A substance, in this case a wild yeast starter, that is used in sourdough baking to make dough rise.
  2. Some methods of baking, such as ‘Tartine Method’ require a sourdough leavening agent be made from a sourdough ‘mother culture’ (aka your Starter). This technique is often employed to boost the yeast activity of the sourdough starter by feeding a small amount of starter a larger quantity of flour and water. For instance, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of sourdough starter, a leaven can be prepared 8-12 hours before the dough will be mixed by combining 1 Tablespoon of sourdough starter with ½ cup flour and a scant ½ cup of water. This leaven can then be used as the sourdough starter and will be quite active come baking time.
verb
  1. cause (dough or bread) to rise by adding leaven.