Artisan Sourdough Made Simple: A Beginner's Guide to Delicious Handcrafted Bread with Minimal Kneading Paperback – October 24, 2017

I am indebted to the friend who told me about this book. I have always been too intimidated to make bread, as much as I wanted to learn. But once I made my first bread from this book, I couldn't stop! I now make bread every few weeks. The recipes are uncomplicated, instructions are clear and easy to follow, and the results are truly luscious. Think crisp, crackily crust with a soft flavorful interior. I've made the basic sourdough, sesame semolina (my favorite), whole wheat, cinnamon raisin, multigrain, light rye and pumpernickel many times. Also, Emilie will answer your bread questions posted to her website. If you're longing for great bread at home, all you need is a ceramic Dutch oven and this book!

If you want to make sourdough you need this book. Easy and straightforward. Debunks a lot of the garbage you find on the web. Great instructions super simple.

I made bread on it and the bread turned out so good. It gives you the recipe on how to make yeast. There are a lot of recipes in this book.

I have been baking with sourdough for about 5 years now, I always recommend this book to anyone looking into sourdough. Great recipes, easy to understand directions... the ultimate sourdough guide!!!

LOVE this book! Use it for all my sourdough baking. Recipes make beautiful loaves. Nice photos, sturdy heavy pages, lots of different recipes. You wont regret buying this one! I have two houses and each house has one!

I looked through at all the recipes and really liked the variety of breads and variations. And there’s a section for what to do with discards, and a section for suggested accompaniments.I knocked 1 star just because I saw most recipes added a bit of sugar. I’m a fan of traditional long ferment sourdough and don’t believe bread should contain sugar. However I’m most likely a minority and there’s probably plenty of people who will enjoy the recipes as-is.

I am not a novice baker though nor am I a professional. I have made a TON of recipes from this book and so far all but two turned out amazing- and the two that were just iffy I am actually going to give them a second try because I think it may have been a combo of user error and the recipe needing a little tweaking. The user error was possibly the grissini (good flavor but the twisting was a bit of a chore and mine turned out tough not crispy. The "tweak" is the soup in the back of the book- I feel it needed more flavor with some sausage or sliced kielbasa and a kick of some spice to liven it up, it was a little bland for my tastes.The sourdough starter I use have been The Bread Bible's starter recipe and all the recipes have excelled so far. My favorites are the rustic, the pumpkin cranberry, the rolls, the bagels, and the english muffins. Several of the others are also fantastic but these above are my top ones that I have been baking over and over againI love the simplicity of her recipes. They either start in the morning and have the bread made by the afternoon or (easiest for me) throw together the dough in the evening before bed and set out on counter for bulk rise to be made first thing in the morning. I have been making bread nearly every single day with the ease of these recipes.I have only two complaints so far for this book: first are her baking times, for me, have been just slightly off. I use a cast iron Dutch oven (or cloche) to bake my rustic bread in, and a large stoneware loaf pan for my loaves. She doesn't really instruct well the temps or times for using these. That is ok. I have adjusted to my tastes and have figured out better times and temps. It's only mild adjustments so not difficult to figure out. I live at altitude which hasn't really mattered much but just FYI. For dutch oven baking I preheat my oven and Dutch oven usually at 450-475 30-45min before baking while I allow my bread it's final rise. Then I slash my bread and lower into the hot dutch oven and close the lid. I bake about 10-15 min (usually closer to 10) with the lid on then remove the lid and bake another 15-25 min until the bread registers internally about 190-200 degrees depending on the type of bread I am baking. Then I place on wire rack to cool completely.The loaves in the pic are from the basic rustic loaf in her book: I had the lid on a little too long for my norm as it didn't develop quite as good of a dark outer crust due to a longer steam but this time was unique as I was actually desiring a lighter crust. They turned out perfectly.The second and biggest complaint is that her pictures and descriptions for how to fold and shape the bread or loaves are not great, especially if there is a novice baker trying to learn the skill. What would have been better would for her to provide a youtube link to SHOW the actual act of shaping or folding the dough in a slow methodical manner. That is how I learned over the years and had I not had those videos in my early years to learn from I would have been lost. Now I can shape dough like a pro and my rolls are gorgeous. That said, please go to youtube asap and check out videos on shaping boules, rolls, slashing techniques, and so forth. There is a plethora of fantastic techniques to assist you in making amazing loaves. San Diego Artisan Bread School does a great boule shaping video and Bake with Jack does a great demo on how to shape perfect rolls.All in all, this is a great book and I highly recommend it. I am blowing through the recipes in this book and anticipate having tried every single one by the end of next month:)

A lot of good ideas and recipes