Baking Sourdough Bread: Dozens of Recipes for Artisan Loaves, Crackers, and Sweet Breads

by Göran Söderin, George Strachal

Sourdough is magic. It’s healthy, it’s tasty, and it’s alive. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a magician to craft beautiful, tasty loaves from it. Baking sourdough bread is an art for everyone. Baking Sourdough Bread is the cookbook and guide into the delicious, healthy world of sourdough.

Baking with sourdough isn’t difficult; the biggest challenge is patience! But take it easy, and your taste buds will be rewarded with a crispy crust and rich, full flavor. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to know a few tricks when mastering the art, and this book offers plenty. Learn to make a sourdough starter, and keep the leaven active with regular feeding. Try different flours and unique ingredients; did you know you can make delectable bread with apples and raisins, for example?

The book contains recipes for classics like levain and Old English wheat-and-sourdough, unique twists like carrot bread and hazelnut, and sweet breads such as the German gugelhupf, among many others. But it’s not just the recipes that make the book a treat. It’s the creativity it cultivates. The book is a starter—and not just for sourdough.

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Cooking

135 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Riley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not interested in a cookbook ostensibly about sourdough that supplements recipes with commercial yeast. Also, a lot of the bread looked odd and over-proofed.

[Brenda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. I'm so disappointed in this one. It was super short ("dozens of recipes" is definitely an exaggeration). A number of recipes use commercial yeast, which is just wrong as far as I'm concerned. Finally, there's was not even one recipe that appealed to me as something worth trying. Can't remember the last time that happened to me with any kind of cookbook.

[Dean Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not care much for this book. The work was not very well written and the recipes are tossed off with little care.
I often read cookbooks that look like they were written by someone who thought "I could write a cookbook, it's easy." This looks to be one of those.
Little thought was put into this, and it looks like something that was written to be a remainder.
Pass this one by.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book that is definitely not for beginner bread bakers. It is confusing at times, as well as containing some recipes that create a ridiculously large amounts. The Karlsbad Bread recipe yields 30 buns; the Wheat Buns recipe yields 35 buns. That's a LOT of buns!

One single gram of flour can contain tens of thousands of yeast cells. In order to be able to use the carbohydrates for nutrition so the yeast cells can grow and multiply, it's necessary to add water so the flour starch can break down into sugars. [The Chemistry]

Yet Söderin says to use 200 grams of flour to create the starter, and 100 grams of flour for feeding it weekly. That is a LOT of flour and water. That will require a big jar and a big fridge to store the starter.... But at least there is no instruction to throw massive amounts of starter away when feeding.

Showing that there are zillions of ways to achieve not unsimilar results, Söderin's method for creating a sourdough starter is quite different from the two featured in so many of the recent popular books out of the USA. Intriguing also are the starter recipes containing oats, beans, lentils, or potatoes.

Alas, there are slight problem with translations: "As is often the case when a book has been translated from a European language to American English, amounts must be converted from metric into the English System of Measurements" and "If you have sourdough left over, you can freeze it in containers that hold half a cup" (how many half cup containers fit into a freezer? And what weight of sourdough goes into a half a cup??) and "The roasted oats give this [carrot] bread a slightly nutty flavor, and the carrots make it juicy" (Ewww. I wonder what the original Swedish was - surely not 'juicy'. Nobody can want juicy bread, can they?).

Silly Americans! And I'm not talking about American bakers. I'm talking about American publishers who insist that the English and/or Americans cannot cope with metric weights, nor are they really comfortable if volumes aren't indicated. However, at least all the measures include both metric weights and volumes. There is none of the usual American publishing idiocy of indicating only a volume measures for salt, and refreshingly only weights for the cardamom called for in the Wheat Buns....

The biggest surprise is that many recipes call for adding commercial yeast. Sure, it's fresh yeast, but this is still commercial yeast. Additionally, there is no list to show what the equivalents are between fresh yeast, active dry yeast, and instant yeast. Even if they aren't required!

If you add a little yeast to the dough, you'll get a larger bread with a less sour taste. A "normal" dough for one family requires ⅔-¾ oz (10-20 g) fresh yeast. [The Golden Rules]

What exactly is a "normal" dough for one family"? Also, our wild-yeast bread isn't even remotely sour. Nor does it require any commercial yeast in addition to wild yeast to get loft.

Happily, not all the recipes call for commercial yeast as well as sourdough starter. And there are some interesting ideas for various kinds of bread: Cheese and Sesame Bread, Olive Bread, Spelt Bread with Orange Peel, Crispy Rye Bread, Potato Bread (made with a potato starter),

my favourite part of the book:

Back in the olden days, sourdough was believed to serve many functions. The dough was sometimes used as dog food; it could heal wounds, particularly burns; and it was used to make alcoholic beverages. The traditional Russian drink kvass, for example, is made from sourdough black or rye bread. The dough could even be used to seal cracks in poorly built houses and to half-sole shoes. [Mystical Sourdough]

If half stars were allowed, the rating would be 2.5.

[Clwseattle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baking Sourdough Bread: Dozens of Recipes for Artisan Loaves, Crackers, and Sweet Breads is an interesting bread book.

The author calls for fresh yeast which breaks my heart a little. I love working with fresh yeast, but I haven't been able to find it here in the US for years. She made my heart light again with her recipe for Rosemary bread.

The 'Proportions ground rules' are wonderfully simple to understand.

I found it interesting that the starter is a combination of the wild yeast and fermentation process. There are also specific instructions for oat, potato, and lentil starter.

The photos are instructional and illustrative. They make you want to try every recipe.

4.5 Stars for Baking Sourdough Bread.

[Eva Zeman · Rating 1 out of 5]

definitely not something I would be opening again, ever. The cookbook is about sourdough, but recipes feature adding regular yeast. Please change the cookbook title, it’s misleading. Also the pictures don’t look appealing and a lot of breads look over-proofed. I’ve never ever put down a cookbook without trying at least one recipe before, so at least somehow this book is unique.

[Shelly String · Rating 3 out of 5]

Metric not included

In this day and age it is shocking that recipe and cookery/baking books don't include both metric and imperial measurements by default. Aside from this ridiculous oversight, the book is quite useful I suppose

[Mark Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting recipe ideas but useless for technique

[Eliza · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read as ebook