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The Beginner's Guide to Sourdough: Best-Kept Secrets for Successful Bread Every Time
Known for her beginner-friendly sourdough masterclass and family-friendly recipes, Amy Coyne has years of experience teaching others how to make their own natural yeast bread. The book is an extension of that knowledge, organized in a way to optimize success; each recipe builds on the last, walking a reader through everything from their first bulk fermentation to the turn and folds of artisanal loaves and the stiff levain-bases of sweets treats.
Each chapter opens with a longform recipe that showcases the style of sourdough explored in those pages. These central, representative recipes provide readers with an expanded method and ample step-by-step images that ensure understanding not only in that first bake but in every one that follows. And once a reader has mastered their first beginner-oriented loaf—or perhaps their first few with recipes like Easy Three Cheese Sourdough Bread, Sheet Pan Focaccia and Sourdough Bread Bowls? Then they’re ready to explore crusty artisan breads, flavorful sandwich loaves, shaped breads and stiff levain treats like Raspberry Rolls, Caramel Pecan Monkey Bread and a Braided Orange Loaf. Amy rounds out her collection with a chapter on discard, showing readers how to add discard to any recipe and sharing some of her household favorites including Chocolate Chip Sourdough Cookies, Saturday Morning Pancakes and Parmesan Herb Crackers.
Throughout, Amy includes helpful resources for bakers like Temperature Timelines and Sourdough Starter and Levain Ratio Tables that are bound to be bookmarked by every reader. Bursting with helpful tips from cover to cover, home bakers everywhere will be turning to this guide for their every sourdough need.
Each chapter opens with a longform recipe that showcases the style of sourdough explored in those pages. These central, representative recipes provide readers with an expanded method and ample step-by-step images that ensure understanding not only in that first bake but in every one that follows. And once a reader has mastered their first beginner-oriented loaf—or perhaps their first few with recipes like Easy Three Cheese Sourdough Bread, Sheet Pan Focaccia and Sourdough Bread Bowls? Then they’re ready to explore crusty artisan breads, flavorful sandwich loaves, shaped breads and stiff levain treats like Raspberry Rolls, Caramel Pecan Monkey Bread and a Braided Orange Loaf. Amy rounds out her collection with a chapter on discard, showing readers how to add discard to any recipe and sharing some of her household favorites including Chocolate Chip Sourdough Cookies, Saturday Morning Pancakes and Parmesan Herb Crackers.
Throughout, Amy includes helpful resources for bakers like Temperature Timelines and Sourdough Starter and Levain Ratio Tables that are bound to be bookmarked by every reader. Bursting with helpful tips from cover to cover, home bakers everywhere will be turning to this guide for their every sourdough need.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published September 16, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 10, 2025
So much really good info, and helpful images.
A few caveats - are most readers going to run out and buy a gram scale? Do most readers maintain a 70-degree kitchen? Year round?
The first suggestion to getting started is buy or borrow starter from an outside source. This might be valid, but how discouraging for the 'beginner'! 'Get it somewhere else'?
There are many frustrating issues with the e-book:
- No proper Table of Contents. Oh, wait, its on page 544! Why?
- The links sometimes reach the page indicated, but there is no simple way to return to the page it came from - no 'back', no cross-reference, no 'finger in the book'. (The e-reader bookmark doesn't work for this.)
- The pictures don't always lay out with the text they're associated with, confusing the 'beginner'. For example,there are 4 shots of starter, but the reader has to figure out which images match which paragraphs. That is annoying for any baker.
Headers (e.g. Days 2 and 3) too often appear on the page before the section content, no matter the zoom. Outlined call-outs split across pages (turned pages, not facing.) These are major errors that are quite fixable with basic coding, as well as intelligent layout rules, but the publisher did not bother.
This is a 'How-To' book written like someone is talking to the reader. The anecdotes and advice liberally shared are interesting and useful, but embedded in the instructions, making it very challenging to use as a 'How-To'. For example, in the Days 2 & 3 section, this tip:
For some reason, the VERY enlightening "Baker's Schedule" inserts appear ... in the middle of recipes, e.g. on Page 128, embedded with the Foccacia Bread Recipe. This is a 2-day schedule, 9am to 5pm and 8am to after Noon.
First, this would be a caveat to put perhaps in the INTRO to the book? "Baking bread, and especially baking sourdough bread, is a multi-day commitment. This is a typical schedule..." Professional bakers and people of true leisure may choose to spend their day stopping every hour in the afternoon to tend to a single food item, but most "Beginners" might not be ready to commit their lives to this endeavor. To bake a single recipe. On top of the daily maintenance of the 'sourdough starter' itself, even after it is setup and thriving.
In sum, this is a book with great photos and tons of advice, yet more a brain dump plus personal journal, than a 'beginner's guide'. In fact, this reader wonder's why it wasn't simply called "Guide to Sourdough Baking: Best-Kept ...." or "Art & Science of Sourdough"
One recipe, "Artisan Sourdough Bread" has 38 full-size pages of instruction and photos. 38 PAGES - this is not a craft for the casual curious!
However ... the "Sourdough Discard" recipes look tasty, much easier, and, unlike several sourdough breads, most of them cannot be found at even a good grocery store. "Crispy Parmesan Crackers", "Fresh Strawberry Scones", "Blueberry Lemon Cake" ... yum!
A few caveats - are most readers going to run out and buy a gram scale? Do most readers maintain a 70-degree kitchen? Year round?
The first suggestion to getting started is buy or borrow starter from an outside source. This might be valid, but how discouraging for the 'beginner'! 'Get it somewhere else'?
There are many frustrating issues with the e-book:
- No proper Table of Contents. Oh, wait, its on page 544! Why?
- The links sometimes reach the page indicated, but there is no simple way to return to the page it came from - no 'back', no cross-reference, no 'finger in the book'. (The e-reader bookmark doesn't work for this.)
- The pictures don't always lay out with the text they're associated with, confusing the 'beginner'. For example,there are 4 shots of starter, but the reader has to figure out which images match which paragraphs. That is annoying for any baker.
Headers (e.g. Days 2 and 3) too often appear on the page before the section content, no matter the zoom. Outlined call-outs split across pages (turned pages, not facing.) These are major errors that are quite fixable with basic coding, as well as intelligent layout rules, but the publisher did not bother.
This is a 'How-To' book written like someone is talking to the reader. The anecdotes and advice liberally shared are interesting and useful, but embedded in the instructions, making it very challenging to use as a 'How-To'. For example, in the Days 2 & 3 section, this tip:
"...the discard from your mature starter is great for baking (here). But while you're building a starter from scratch, I recommend truly "discarding" it --In the Day 4 section, this advice:
...Eventually, you will find great uses for discard (see my chapter "The Secret of Sourdough Discard"...With the right inflection, that would make sense. But in writing, several pages apart, the term 'discard' in repetition may lose meaning. The author could have simplified this: "...set aside this part. In the early stages it is waste, add it tonyour compost pile. When the starter matures, this removed part will become what sourdough bakers call 'discard', and can be used in other ways."
For some reason, the VERY enlightening "Baker's Schedule" inserts appear ... in the middle of recipes, e.g. on Page 128, embedded with the Foccacia Bread Recipe. This is a 2-day schedule, 9am to 5pm and 8am to after Noon.
First, this would be a caveat to put perhaps in the INTRO to the book? "Baking bread, and especially baking sourdough bread, is a multi-day commitment. This is a typical schedule..." Professional bakers and people of true leisure may choose to spend their day stopping every hour in the afternoon to tend to a single food item, but most "Beginners" might not be ready to commit their lives to this endeavor. To bake a single recipe. On top of the daily maintenance of the 'sourdough starter' itself, even after it is setup and thriving.
In sum, this is a book with great photos and tons of advice, yet more a brain dump plus personal journal, than a 'beginner's guide'. In fact, this reader wonder's why it wasn't simply called "Guide to Sourdough Baking: Best-Kept ...." or "Art & Science of Sourdough"
One recipe, "Artisan Sourdough Bread" has 38 full-size pages of instruction and photos. 38 PAGES - this is not a craft for the casual curious!
However ... the "Sourdough Discard" recipes look tasty, much easier, and, unlike several sourdough breads, most of them cannot be found at even a good grocery store. "Crispy Parmesan Crackers", "Fresh Strawberry Scones", "Blueberry Lemon Cake" ... yum!
June 17, 2026
Have had great success with this book. Love the recipes included. Simple and easy for beginners. However it’s the only sourdough book I have ever read so I have no others to compare to
October 20, 2025
This is a very comprehensive and thorough guide to sourdough. While it says “beginner’s guide,” it covers a lot of information and also progresses through “bakes,” teaching you how to begin your sourdough journey from growing a starter, through your first loaf, and then more advanced loaves and also how to use sourdough discard in your recipes. Every single recipe includes a full-page, full-color picture of the finished product. Most of the recipes also include smaller but still full-color recipes for individual steps throughout the recipes. There are also included QR codes for several of the steps that link to videos to show you a visual process of the coordinating steps. Each recipe begins with an introduction and includes a list of special equipment (if needed), a baker’s schedule, the ingredients, and detailed step-by-step instructions, some with photos and QR codes, as mentioned. Every recipe spans multiple pages because of how thorough and comprehensive the instructions are, and I love this. The further into the book we progress, each recipe is still detailed and 2+ pages (not including the main photo), but the earlier, beginning, explanatory recipes are very detailed to help you learn the process of sourdough and what exactly to do and to expect. The baker’s schedule I have found to be extremely helpful in planning out my bakes and when I need to start different steps or when things should be ready. It is a guide and not exact, but knowing a timeline for each recipe for the ones I’ve tried so far has already been extremely helpful and made me feel much less stressed if things aren’t exactly ready but has helped me know what to watch for and the best times to do things and to work them into my day so that sourdough doesn’t “run my life” (like I’ve seen plenty of reels make fun of people who bake sourdough for! Ha ha!!). There’s a wonderful section with discard recipes, and this section also teaches how to adjust any recipe that you would like to add sourdough discard to. Amy Coyne’s most viral sourdough croissant loaf recipe is not in this book, and I would have loved to see it included in the later bakes/more intermediate/advanced loaves (it’s a phenomenal loaf of bread!!!), but the recipe is readily available on her Instagram and website. Honestly, the only downside to this book was that every recipe was described as their family favorite, so I’m sure that’s why she picked them all. It was just like reading the same intro to each recipe. :) I am really looking forward to trying every single recipe in this book. I’ve already tried multiple from this book (from her website/Instagram) and learned why my dough from following other recipes was so much stickier and how to prevent that and my loaves have improved even more since taking the time to read through all of Amy’s information about the science behind the steps and how sourdough works. Yes, I read this entire cookbook from beginning to end. It’s really well thought out and put together and with amazing information to back all of the delicious recipes! I really hope Amy makes a followup cookbook with even more of her amazing sourdough creations!
June 27, 2026
A fantastic, accessible resource that demystifies the art of sourdough baking and breaks it down into easily understandable steps.
Amy Coyne not only knows how to bake a perfect sourdough loaf, she knows how to explain it for newbies. And she understands that life doesn’t always allow us to follow rigidly regimented schedules.
The recipes in this book are grouped into segments: basic first loaves, then progressing to more complex and artisan loaves. There’s also a section of recipes using sourdough discard.
She explains everything in simple-to-understand detail. Sometimes knowing the “why” behind instructions makes a big difference.
Each recipe includes a bakers’ timeline (a guideline with options for modification as needed). Instructions are written in a conversational style as if you had the author in your kitchen walking you through the steps. Clear photos show what key dough moments should look like.
The hardcover version is sturdy enough to stay open on your table for reference.
[Review copy from the public library.]
Amy Coyne not only knows how to bake a perfect sourdough loaf, she knows how to explain it for newbies. And she understands that life doesn’t always allow us to follow rigidly regimented schedules.
The recipes in this book are grouped into segments: basic first loaves, then progressing to more complex and artisan loaves. There’s also a section of recipes using sourdough discard.
She explains everything in simple-to-understand detail. Sometimes knowing the “why” behind instructions makes a big difference.
Each recipe includes a bakers’ timeline (a guideline with options for modification as needed). Instructions are written in a conversational style as if you had the author in your kitchen walking you through the steps. Clear photos show what key dough moments should look like.
The hardcover version is sturdy enough to stay open on your table for reference.
[Review copy from the public library.]
June 22, 2026
Edit to add: I just made my first two sourdough loaves, using instructions from the book, and the results were incredible. The oven spring is amazing. Highly recommend this book. Very good and practical instructions.
Original: Is it fine to rate and review a cookbook you've only made one recipe from? But I really quite enjoy this book. Recipes are nicely categorized and abundant. Info is helpful, educational, but not overwhelming. I love that you can make so many things from a sourdough starter, not just crusty bread. The recipe selection is a compilation of everything I care to bake. Highly recommend.
Original: Is it fine to rate and review a cookbook you've only made one recipe from? But I really quite enjoy this book. Recipes are nicely categorized and abundant. Info is helpful, educational, but not overwhelming. I love that you can make so many things from a sourdough starter, not just crusty bread. The recipe selection is a compilation of everything I care to bake. Highly recommend.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews