Classic Sourdoughs: A Home Baker's Handbook (Paperback)

by Ed Wood (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
“Brings the tradition of sourdough cooking into focus. It is easy, interesting reading and doesn'¬?t make sourdough baking seem complicated.”—Sharon Maasdam, The Oregonian“A Match Made With Leaven: A True Story of Loafing, Lust, and Loss” —headline of review with recipe tested by The Palm Beach Post

Product Description
Bread lovers and baking enthusiasts who covet the mouthwatering aroma and tantalizing taste of the most esteemed of breads, sourdough, will delight in CLASSIC SOURDOUGHS, an updated version of our essential baker’s companion, World Sourdoughs from Antiquity. Author and sourdough aficionado Ed Wood describes the basics of preparing a sourdough culture, and then moves on to building, shaping, and baking these storied loaves from the ground up. En route, Wood mixes hard science with a profound respect for baking traditions, emphasizing the importance of ingredient selection and paying homage to the baking techniques practiced by the ancient Egyptians. Baking, history, chemistry, cultural anthropology—this is truly a sourdough magnum opus, an engaging, authoritative volume that, most importantly, will show you how to prepare these scrumptious breads in your own kitchen.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press; First Printing edition (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580083447
• ISBN-13: 978-1580083447
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #127,084 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for the novice and expert home baker alike!, March 8, 2002

By	Mary Sanders (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This book really is for the home baker who doesn't have the special ovens and tools of the artisans like Daniel Leader's Bread Alone or Nancy Singleton"s La Brea Bakery. Ed Wood's book gives instructions that can be used with any sourdough starter although I have produced far better sourdoughs with his starters than any I captured myself. There isn't a baker's yeast recipe in the entire book. If you're a novice baker or an old hand, you can learn a lot about sourdoughs from this book.

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect sourdoughs even with a bread machine!!, March 6, 2002

By	Josh Kelly (Madison, WI, USA) - See all my reviews

The thing I liked best about Dr. Wood's new book was the section on doing sourdoughs in bread machines. For the last 10 years I've been totally frustrated trying to get a decent sourdough out of a machine. Now, I'm turning out a perfect sourdough with the sourness I really like and the loaf comes out with that open texture with all the big holes of a real San Francisco sourdough.

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best sourdough cookbook, March 3, 2002

By	Helen Goode (Las Cruces, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This is the only book I have found that really tells how to make sourdough bread the right way without having to use yeast. The book gives explicit instructions from the moment the starter comes from the refrigerator until the finished loaf leaves the pan. The step by step methods tell how to produce an active starter every time so the bread always rises well.
Each recipe gives different options for length of proofing cycles using different proofing temperatures. I was never able to control the temperature during proofing until I read the description for making an inexpensive proofing box described in the book. It made all the difference between success and failure.