Have you ever wanted to bake San Francisco sourdough, crusty French artisan loaves, dense Russian ryes, Italian ciabatta, Indian naan, pita bread, great homemade pizza crusts, soft whole wheat sandwich bread, bagels, sweet doughs, Ethiopian injera crêpes and much more?
This book explores what goes on inside dough as it is transformed from water, flour, wild yeast and probiotic bacteria into the kind of bread that makes your mouth water. You may never be satisfied … More >>
Wild Bread – Handbaked sourdough artisan breads in your own kitchen
Tags: artisan breads, ethiopian injera, pizza crusts, probiotic bacteria, sandwich bread
We have recently discovered the joys of baking (and eating) homemade bread…so much so that we’ve taken the plunge to purchase a grain mill to begin grinding our own flour. To expand our knowledge, I also purchased nearly all the top selling books on artisian breads as well as several popular general bread books. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one but with relatively few books on whole grains and wild yeasts, decided to give it a try. To be perfectly honest, I did not have high expectations especially because I (like many others) have an inordinate fondness for full color splashy photographs, rich paper and enticing ad copy. The promise of simple binding, a few drawings and an unknown author didn’t seem promising.
To my great surprise, this book QUICKLY went to the top of my “must keep” list. The reading is engaging, very enjoyable with a pleasant conversational style. The drawings – while not full color photogaphs – are equally interesting and truly add a great touch…but, the Real value of this book is the content and information contained. It’s absolutely packed full of relevant content about bread-making…without a doubt this book has more information than almost all the other books I bought including the highly ranked books by Peter Rheinhart and Richard Bertinet…in fact, this book contained nearly evething in both of those books COMBINED plus much more.
I do not know the author but would like to express my sincere gratitude for an exceptionally written, well researched and engaging book.
Who will Love this Book….
- Anyone that loves bread, baking, baking bread or eating bread.
- Anyone interested in creating the most unique, natural breads with a distinctive taste and style of their very own.
- Anyone searching for several different starters, sources for ordering them around the world, variations on taste/texture etc…
- Anyone searching for great, easy to understand recipes including many beautiful shapes, interesting textures and of course – good flavors!
- Anyone interested in using a solar oven or sustainable cooking methods (note, this is not heavily emphasized but for those like us that have a solar oven or are thinking of getting one it is all you need. BTW, living in a hurricane prone area (Florida) makes solar ovens a great idea…we ran across one years ago at a thrift store for $20 and have been amazed how well it cooks so it was a very nice surprise to see info on it here!).
Bottom Line…
Don’t let the sophistication of glossy pages fool you…this book has it all. It’s the same difference between buying store-bought white bread that lacks all flavor and nutrition but is well marketed versus making your own.
A seriously good bread book!
Rating: 5 / 5
I’ve been making bread now for over thirty years. For most of that time, I have been using commercial yeast. But for a few years, I had a sourdough starter that made great bread. And for a few other years, I had a desem starter that I made using the Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book.
For various reasons both of those starters got lost. The desem was a little too labor intensive. But I wanted to get back to sourdough bread, because it just tastes better to me; by comparison, bread raised with commercial yeast is sort of bland to me.
This book is the book you need if you want to make artisan-style, whole grain sourdough breads. It teaches you how to capture your own wild sourdough organisms, or how to order an exotic starter from, say, Austria. I had had difficulty in the past getting a good-tasting wild starter, but now I know the secret: it’s pineapple juice! (Read the book to find out how to use it.)
This is not a conventional cookbook in the sense that you can’t just turn to the sourdough bread recipe and start mixing things up. You really need to read the whole book to understand the whole process of capturing the starter, taking care of the starter between bakings, mixing up various kinds of dough, raising the dough, and baking it. There are interesting chapters about cooking in solar cookers and in a masonry oven.
I didn’t realize that sourdough traditions were so wide-spread in the world. The author covers many different kinds of breads from all over the world, made with everything from the tiny tef grain, to soaked rice and beans. It makes sense, though, when you think about it: fermentation happens.
I also like all the illustrations from old prints, showing medieval people harvesting wheat, grinding flour, and baking bread.
Rating: 5 / 5
The art of making bread is one of mankind’s oldest culinary skills. “Wild Bread” by Lisa Rayner is more than just another ‘how to’ book on baking bread. What is unique is her presentation of step-by-step instructions on baking such culinary delights as San Francisco sourdough, crusty French artisan loaves, dense Russian ryes, Italian ciabatta, Indian naan, pita bread, and Ethiopian injera crepes. Also provided are ‘kitchen cook friendly’ recipes for everything from pizza crusts and whole wheat sandwich bread, to bagels and sweet doughs. Highly recommended for personal, family, and community library cookbook collections, “Wild Bread” is spiral bound to lay flat upon the kitchen table or counter — always a good thing.
Rating: 5 / 5
This 170-page book contains a wealth of good information that will be useful to the experienced baker as well as the novice. The author has a clear writing style and has obviously put a lot of time and energy into researching the information, and experimenting in her own kitchen. In addition, the book is beautifully assembled, with interesting and informative illustrations on almost every page. As someone familiar with the author’s other books, Growing food in the southwest mountains: A permaculture approach to home gardening above 6,500 feet in Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado and southern Utah and The Sunny Side of Cooking – Solar cooking and other ecologically friendly cooking methods for the 21st century, I know that she has a real concern for the environment. That comes through here not only in the text and recipes, but also in the recycled paper. You won’t find that in most other cookbooks. In the interest of full-disclosure, I should perhaps mention that I am the author’s husband.
Rating: 5 / 5
Wild Bread is definitely a book to read cover to cover, to get the big overall picture. The book is organized extremely well, with far more helpful details than I could have imagined. Some baking books mention that it is better to weigh your ingredients, for example. In this book, Lisa takes it 10 steps further and gives you simple, thorough instructions on how to do this, explaning about baker’s percentages and hydration levels. (She does still give US measurements for reference but after reading her clear instructions any sourdough beginner, like I, will want to incorporate measuring.) Lisa obviously knows her topic very well in terms of history as well as practical experience. She clearly spells out her own methods, but also offers a comprehensive picture giving many suggestions, so you don’t worry that her way is the only way it can be done successfully. After thorough instructions on caring for the starter, as well as describing in detail each step of the measuring/mixing/kneading/proofing/baking process, she gives recipes for about any and all type of bread imaginable – artisan in all shapes and sizes, pizza dough, pan and sandwich breads, sweet dough, crackers, pancakes, english muffins and everything in between! She gives helpful guidelines for providing a springboard for creativity within each recipe type. This book is a complete steal for the amount of time Lisa had to have put into this.
I’m getting my spelt starter going so I’m learning how my particular starter works while also working to make baking a routine I include in my week. I have yet to try the longer multiple proofing artisan loaves, but so far I’ve made lots of crackers, as well as the batter bread as she suggested with cinnamon and raisins. They have turned out great. The book has been exactly what I’ve needed.
Rating: 5 / 5