Tartine Book No. 3: Modern Ancient Classic Whole

by Chad Robertson

The third in a series of classic, collectible cookbooks from Tartine Bakery & Cafe, one of the great bakeries, Tartine Book No. 3 is a revolutionary, and altogether timely, exploration of baking with whole grains. The narrative of Chad Robertson's search for ancient flavors in heirloom grains is interwoven with 85 recipes for whole-grain versions of Tartine favorites. Robertson shares his groundbreaking new methods of bread baking including new techniques for whole-grain loaves, as well as porridge breads and loaves made with sprouted grains. This book also revisits the iconic Tartine Bakery pastry recipes, reformulating them to include whole grains, nut milks, and alternative sweeteners. More than 100 photographs of the journey, the bread, the pastry and the people, make this is a must-have reference for the modern baker.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Nonfiction, Reference, Ebooks, Foodie

337 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 3, 2013

Reviews

[Nelliew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chad Robertson is clearly a fantastic baker with some wonderful ideas for making outstanding bread. So far I have made the following bread recipes from this book with great success--several of them multiple times:

White-Wheat Blend
Wheat-Rye 10%
Wheat-Rye 20%
Buckwheat with Toasted Groats and Creme Fraiche (a favorite!)
Kamut 60%
Emmer/Einkorn
Spelt-Wheat
Wheat-Rye-Caraway-Coriander (a favorite!)
Sprouted Einkorn
Sprouted Purple Barley
Sprouted Quinoa-Kamut
Smoked Sprouted Rye (a favorite!)
Sprouted Spelt
Sprouted Emmer with Maple and Beer
Rye Porridge
Oat Porridge
Barley Porridge Flaxseed
Cracked Rye
Sprouted Amaranth

So I have some experience with the book and his method even though I have much more of the book to explore. I don't follow his procedure exactly, but some aspects of his technique have completely changed the way I think about and make bread. The book is not for beginner bakers, though. You should be pretty comfortable with bread baking before attempting these recipes. You should also have a job that allows you to stay home all day :)

Two complaints that keep me from giving the book five stars:
(1) Robertson needs an editor with a sharp eye. Several of the recipes have mistakes and confusing instructions. Some procedures are described using certain terminology on one page and then it changes on the next. There are few chefs/bakers who can write perfect recipes, so I don't hold it against him. But it definitely lowers the quality of the book.
(2) The trend these days is for the blending of cookbooks and coffee table books. Some marketer has realized that most cookbook purchases are aspirational and people would rather look at beautiful pictures than actually cook. But, in the long run, cookbooks have staying power because people use them for many years, and these cookbooks are ill-served by all the glamour photography. I would prefer illustrations of techniques and photos of what the final product is supposed to look like -- with labels -- and not lush photos of the baker in his natural environment, or ingredients artfully arranged on slabs of marble. I mean, it's beautiful, but worthless. I hope the trend reverses!

[Katya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A co-worker just informed me that if I were in jail, I could call her for getaway assistance, on the strength of my sesame wheat bread.

I then made two more Tartine #3 loaves in progress, one oatmeal porridge/walnut oil, and one sprouted kamut. These showcase two of the newer techniques in the book, so I'm interested to see how they do. I added a touch of dessicated coconut flake to my oats, which I'm hoping will add something.

The oat and the Kamut were good--the sprouted amaranth was on the bitter bland side. Eager to try something w corn. Made the cocoa nib and buckwheat sables, and going to try a few more variations on that today (cashew/millet?) walnut/sorghum?.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Moving the review to the hardback edition, so it makes more sense.)

Artisan bread is where it's at right now - tasty, trendy, and Tartine. I enjoyed the pictures and the stories. Chad Robertson is, indirectly, the reason I bake bread every weekend. I don't actually make the bread the way he does, though I may someday. Bread fascinates me at this moment and I'm reading every bread book I can get my hands on. Definitely recommended, although I had trouble with the hardback book having to be turned sideways to read some of the sections. Too difficult, I just paged on through.

Bread is a lifestyle, reflected in the pages of this book and perhaps reflected in the pages of my own life.

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not very practical for most casual in-home bakers, but if you want to stretch and try some more challenging recipes, this is a good book to try. I've only seen the e-version, but it had a lot of decent-to-good pictures, and I imagine those look better in the full-size paper version.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent extension to Chad Robertson's first book "Tartine Bread". While the writing is not particularly lyrical, his notes about whole grain baking are terrific. Also really interesting are the several suggestions for what to use in place of white sugar.

Pure white granulated sugar is used to sweeten, but I'd rather think of it as a flavoring agent; using less of it on the whole, and choosing more varied and unrefined types of sugar and other whole foods that both sweeten and flavor. [...] Just choosing which honey to use in a recipe quickly reveals an astonishingly vast range and intensity of flavor and colors. [Pastry . Sugar primer]

The sugar primer is great, covering organic sugar, brown sugar, molasses, jaggery, piloncillo, sucanat, various honeys, and date sugar. (Apparently, date sugar is the only one featured in the book that is NOT water soluble.)
But, for me, the real draw is Robertson's use of whole grain flours and wild yeast. Because I am like him:

I've never had much of a sweet tooth, preferring cheese, coffee, or a square of dark chocolate to end my meals. [pastry]

One thing that I found a little confusing was the term "high extraction flour" that is called for in many of the recipes. I had to read and re-read (and re-read again and again) the following: "When I call for high-extraction flour, as I do in many of the recipes in this book, I'm calling for flour that has an extraction percentage around 85 percent, somewhere between white flour and whole-wheat flour, with a portion of the coarse bran sifted off. " several times before realizing that it seems to simply be sifted whole-wheat flour, with the sifted out bran reserved for "flouring" the board.

This book is definitely aimed at those who already know how to make bread. Beginners would find it quite challenging to have to keep flipping back and forth to pages 34-41 to find out how to mix/strengthen/proof/shape/bake.

bookmarked:
• kefir
• Buckwheat with Toasted Groats
• Sunflower flaxseed
• Seeded Wheat
• Sesame Wheat
• Pecan Shortbread
• Cheddar Cheese Sablés
• Cherry Galettes
• Brioche Smoked Potato Buns

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is overwhelming and brilliant at the same time. It simultaneously gives too much information and not enough information. I'm in love with every loaf of bread on these pages and I get the impression the author makes his method difficult to understand so that only people insanely dedicated to the art of making naturally leavened bread will attempt it.

For those crazy enough to really go for it I imagine there will be many disappointments before lightning strikes.

I'll probably be one of them.

[Tanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous whole grain breads.

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this one more than I did the Tartine Bread (3,5/5). Partly because it offers a wider range of flours and recipes, and partly because it seems slightly less pretentious than the previous one.

Problem is... if you are a domestic baker and not a professional one, you will struggle getting all of the ingredients. So a lot of recipes are again not targeting a beginner/occasional baker, but rather those who bake professionally or have a good source for all these ingredients (a local mill or several for that matter).

Might I also add that as much as these ingredients sound great (and some honestly are), they definitely do not come cheap. I really don't see home bakers spending hundreds of pounds, to produce a few loaves per month, maybe even with a hit and miss loaf in between and consequently never using that 16/25kg bag of grains ever again.

The pastry section is probably more realistic for a domestic baker than the bread one is. Most ingredients are widely accessible and the procedures are not overly complicated.

Nevertheless for me, as a professional baker, it offers a nice range of new ideas to ponder over and try some of them out, maybe tweak them a bit to get something that I can call my own in the end.

P.S. Oatmeal/Porridge bread is really kick ass, hands down. :)

[987643467881 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I'm not really committed to making my own starter and working with a “levain”/leaven every time I want to make bread, I mostly use this book for recipe inspiration. I'm comfortable enough with bread baking to incorporate some of the techniques and ideas into my own recipes and to creatively adjust the recipes to make them work for me – but if I had read this book as a novice to bread baking, I imagine I would have had a difficult time achieving successful results with these recipes – most of them are fussy, challenging, and definitely not fool-proof - they can however make for fun, long-term projects/experiments every once in a while though.
My favourite chapters in the book that I've gone back to a couple of times and would definitely recommend are: "Seeded breads" and "Porridge, cracked-, and flaked-grain breads".

[Rosemary Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romance with grains

Amazing collection of recipes for all things baked savory or sweet rustic to refined amazing travel and works of art from each local. The flavors and aromas jump off the pages ... I can't wait to bake my way through all theme books but I will be starting with this third one.

[Dean Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book and a fun read.(I enjoy cookbooks)
This is for advanced bread bakers only. I would not attempt a lot of this stuff without practice.
some of the recipes are clunky, especially the latter chapters. I think again this is meant for advanced level bakers.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful book, especially informative about baking with sprouted grains. Compared to the original Tartine bread book, though, this pales in comparison- there isn't much to the method aspect of this tome, but the pictures sure are pretty.

[Ambur Taft · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely beautiful bread book.

[eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book taught me how to bake bread that i (and others) enjoy

[aiken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chad Robertson's take on whole grain, in which lots of white flour is used.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really struggled through maintaining a starter/leaven, and this book made me feel that it was doable. It might be difficult to cut one's teeth with these recipes, but they deserve repeated attempts. Nothing feels like pulling open an amazing loaf of homemade sourdough!

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful primer for baking archival breads using whole grains. Many of the recipes Tartine has made famous have been revisited using sprouted and ancient or unusual grains, and the methods are very interesting. The writer uses wild yeast to leaven the dough, by mixing flours and water and lightly covering the batter so that the yeast can find its way in and make a sourdough starter. In addition to many bread varieties, there are a few pastry recipes. Not for the impatient or novice baker.

[Melissa Shmish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Were I a bread baker, this book may have been more my cup of tea. Everything looked chewy and healthy--not that that is a bad thing, it's just the impression I am left with. In its favor, this book would be an excellent primer for bakers seeking to explore baking with whole grains, including some dessert offerings. Caveat: what the desserts lack in a sense of decadence, they make up for with a sense of fiber.

[Eling · Rating 4 out of 5]

The recipes in this book are so far out of my current baking skills range that it's a little laughable, but I found the history/tradition bits & information about baking (tartine-style) bread with whole grains really interesting.

The breads & grains & process are really beautifully captured in the photographs. This is definitely a book I would want in my library in the future as I work on advancing my bread baking skills.

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So exciting.
Porridge breads. Sprouted breads. Seeded breads. Pastries like Buckwheat, Bergamot, Blood Orange Chiffon Cake...
And bread notes from Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Austria, France, Mexico.
I was thrilled to find out there's a Brotfest (Bread Festival) in Austria not far from my husband's house. I might be able to go!

[typewriterdeluxe · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tartine No 3 is beautiful, and was obviously a massive project of love. The book has a strong aesthetic style and the results of the recipes all sound great. However, this feels like a thesis and not a cookbook. As a beginning baker (not a complete noob, but not an expert) I found it to be inaccessible.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspiring but hardly adaptable to the baking standards of the average household kitchen in real time. You would need a personal assistant to keep up with the timing required to pull off any of these recipes. More of a retirement project than a usable cookbook for me at this stage.

[Kirk Dobihal · Rating 5 out of 5]

An advanced continuation of Tartine Bread - you must be an advanced bread baker to appreciate the nuances of this book especially versed in the levain style natural fermented breads. The adage of whole grain explored in this book will tempt you to expand your bread making horizons.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I wanted more.

[Beth Smith-moncrief · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book with recipes using different grain flours, many of them gluten free. my kids even like the recipes.

[Kate]

I may never make this basic bread recipe. It's really involved. But by god I read this book.

[Doug Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent but not for the beginner. Experienced bakers can learn from this.

[Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meer nog dan Tartine Bread is dit boek voor mij hét referentiewerk voor desembrood geworden.

[Xin Tong · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a variety of selection. The problem is the index system is somewhat confusing. Some. The recipes are not quite easy to perform.

[Erik Waiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am definitely making a sourdough starter after reading this. I'll also be trying some of these 2 and 3-day rises with ridiculous amounts of water if I can get the same results.