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I am a big fan of simple sourdough sans commercial yeast and sugar. My preference began as a small child in the '60's with my beautiful grandmother Ora's sourdough rolls. She had a covered crock of it, fragrant with the lovely scent of apples, bubbling away, near her kitchen wood burning stove on a remote 400 acre cotton farm in northeastern Mississippi near Memphis. Elvis country. When the region was finally electrified, other cooks gladly ditched their wood burning stoves for electric ones. Ora (1897-1991) kept hers for breads which she cooked daily for the rest of her active life. Her electric stove sat beside her wood burner. She made the most amazingly fragrant, delicate, tender, fluffy sourdough rolls, seemingly by magic, and in no time. We ate them hot with farm butter and homemade muscadine jelly. They are still the best rolls I'd ever tasted. And guess what? None of her 8 children knows how to make these rolls. She did not make anything else with the sourdough as far as I know.
Many times over many years, I tried yet another cookbook's sourdough bread recipe. I don't consider fakes--recipes with yogurt, sourdough with commercial yeast, or sourdough with cups of sugar to feed the sourdough. But not once were the writers of pure sourdough bread confident about their recipes. This was puzzling and disheartening. The best ones warned that the success rate for pure sourdough bread recipe--flour, salt, water -- was iffy. So my random success wasn't just on me. These people don't know what they are doing. Thankfully, I kept the faith.
Then the Revolution in Sourdough Bread making came to me and mine when I found this book on Amazon's website in 2017. Thank you from the bottom of my heart Amazon and Chad Robertson! My husband, not a bread man, is in love with this bread. My daughter, a busy prosecutor, also makes it weekly for her fans! After reading this book and making the Country Loaf perfectly on the first try, I've entered a new era in sourdough baking. It's been 5 years since I bought this book and I'm still excited about it! My sourdough starter has aged and has a lovely rich floral/fruity/Tupelo honey scent. I most often use half King Arthur's all purpose and half Great River dark whole rye to feed it. I also use sprouted spelt flour from One Degree and Great River bread flour.
The reason my sourdough now turns out perfectly is that Robertson gives his readers exhaustive instructions. Each time I get stuck or have a serious question, I sit down and re-read until I figure out my issue. He is the most chill and detailed craftsman I have ever met in print. These two qualities support his success!
One of the main differences between making a commercial yeast loaf and a sourdough loaf is the style of kneading. The yeast loaf does best for me anyway with a lot of hand kneading, or more accurately kneading without any intention of ever stopping until I feel the dough slowly coming together beautifully into its not-so-sticky springy bouncy firm self. It can wear you out! I have machines that can do it but I like the hand made results better.
Kneading sourdough in the same way is a big no-no. When you push down on a big ball of sourdough, you force the acculated air out of the dough and successfully flatten it, possibly for good! It may rise a bit on the second rise, but the final it may not rise much at all.
Robertson's method explains everything. The photographs are beautfully artisitcic and instructive. And, wonderfully, it costs the baker way less muscle work to make sourdough breads. When your sourdough rises into a fluffy bilious mass of very soft dough, instead of kneading by pushing it away from with the heel of your hand, you delicately and deftly run your hand underneath the dough, grab it with your fingers and then pull upwards ever so gently, trying not to pop any bubbles appearing under the surface. Now, fold the dough, laying it delicately over the top. Voila! This sourdough will rise for you.
For those who don't want to read and research to learn, good luck with that! I've been putting meals on the table since childhood and I couldn't have done it without investing time and effort. The rewards have been wonderful.
Check out Chad Robertson on YouTube. You may be both humbled and inspired as I have been.
I've given you a few tips from this Chef's book. There is so much valuable detail there that I keep mine in the kitchen. I'll leave you with this delicious teaser: Why does Chad Roberston burn his loaves?
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Popular Highlights in this book
Your leaven should smell sweet in an overripe-fruit sort of way. I call this a young leaven, meaning it has not fermented to the point that it smells vinegary.Highlighted by 522 Kindle readers- The baker’s skill in managing fermentation, not the type of oven used, is what makes good bread.Highlighted by 447 Kindle readers
- Immediately reduce the oven temperature to 450°F. Bake the loaf for 20 minutes.Highlighted by 352 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
The Tartine Way
After these magnificent loaves are drawn from the oven, the first cut yields steam and room-filling aroma, exposing a tender interior underneath the burnished crust. From Chad Robertson, winner of the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef in 2008, this distinctive bread was developed over a decade of working with the finest artisan bakers in the USA and France, followed by another decade baking in a small wood-fired oven on the Northern California coast.
Now it's your turn to make this bread. Clear instructions and hundreds of step-by-step photos put you by Chad Robertson's side as he shows you how to make exceptional and elemental bread using just flour, water, and salt.
Also included are variations from this master recipe showcasing a wonderfully diverse set of breads and more than 30 sweet and savory recipes using the day-old bread to make sandwiches, classic soups, puddings, delicious baked French toast, and an addictive Kale Caesar.
Praise for Tartine Bread
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Customer reviews
Best Book If You Want to Make Artisan Loaves
Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2016
Chad Robertson explains step by step how to bake the perfect loaf. Testers with no baking experience were recruited to see whether professional loaves could be baked at home. All succeeded in making loaves indistinguishable from the author's. His point is, you can do it without a commercial steam-injected oven.What do you need that you may not already have? 3 Items.1. A 3-qt cast iron casserole or combo cooker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009JKG9M/ref=sr_ph_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482380697&sr=sr-1&keywords=Cast+iron+combo+cooker. I used my old LeCreset casserole.2. A couple of bannetons https://www.amazon.com/Banneton-Bread-Proofing-Basket-Beautiful/dp/B01E52S2UI/ref=sr_1_5?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1482380774&sr=1-5&keywords=bannetons.3. And rice flour. (I am assuming you have whole wheat flour and bread flour or can buy them at your local grocery.)I followed the instructions for the basic loaf and was amazed at the results. Thick crust, tender crumb, lots of irregular holes and big ears. The author explains that if you want big ears, you must do nearly horizontal slashes.Here are my results:
Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2016
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2014
I started out with some King Arthur Flour recipes available online, and quickly decided I wanted to try my hand at sourdough breads. I followed the instructions over at King Arthur Flour to create a starter, received a little advice from The Fresh Loaf forum, and then decided to buy this book.
As others have written, the book is not one that has hundreds of bread recipes in it, although there are actually quite a few. I have baked two loaves from the book -- the Basic Country Loaf, and the same bread with roasted walnuts. The breads have been amazing. And what is perhaps more exciting, the same dough makes fantastic pizza.
Is it worth the price? Well, it was to me. It was nice to have a set of instructions to read over a bunch of times before taking the plunge into making my first Tartine loaf. Chad Robertson gives a lot of detail, and quite frankly, the instructions are a bit overwhelming and could do with some serious editing. Not because they are confusing, but because they are very lengthy. There is nothing wrong with lengthy; but I encourage anybody reading this book to sit down at their computer and type up those portions of the instructions that they need to bake the basic country loaf, and then print those out. Otherwise you will find yourself needing to turn pages with sticky hands to figure out what you are supposed to do since the recipe spans many pages, and the book is too beautiful and expensive to get dirty.
If you are not familiar with bread baking, but you are willing to commit the time to learning and making this "no knead" bread, you won't be disappointed. But, I would do what I did first, and get a sourdough starter that is working nicely before buying the book. It will only be a huge frustration if you buy the book and never get the starter to work. While he gives instructions for creating a starter, I can't say with certainty that they will work for everybody. You can always try it after you've created your own following the advice from King Arther Flour or another source.
The process for the basic loaf boils down to this:
Take some of your starter (you can take it straight from the fridge, unfed), and build a levain with it. That just means adding water and flour to it, and letting it sit out on the counter for 12 hours or so.
Once the levain is ready (a spoonful of it will float in a bowl of water), you mix the rest of the flour and water and make a very sticky dough, which you will "turn" 4-6 times over the the course of 4 hours. Then you can divide the dough and make pizzas with it, or divide it and shape into loaves which will then "proof" in a bowl or basket, overnight in your fridge. The next morning, you can fire up the oven, and get baking.
He suggests the Lodge Combo Cooker, and that is what I purchased here on Amazon. It is basically two cast iron pans where one acts as a lid to the other, and traps the steam generated from the wet dough as it bakes.
I have never had a problem with my breads burning on top or on bottom, however, if you bake too low on the stove you may find that the bottoms burn. Baking in the middle rack as suggested, has always given me beautiful loaves. I've "scored" my bread (cut it before baking) with a sharp knife or with kitchen shears.
The breads make great grilled cheese, PB&J, toast and that is basically all I have done with them to date. They also taste great fresh out of the oven (well, after waiting a couple of hours).
I've added a photo of one of my best tasting loaves yet. You will see that I baked it rather dark. It does not follow any formula in the book though it is based entirely on the book's process using the same ratio of levain to flour, etc. It is just that altered the percentage of All Purpose, Whole Wheat and Whole Rye flours to suit what I had on hand.
Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast is also an excellent book with similar baking techniques (i.e., lodge combo cooker) but has both commercial yeast and sourdough recipes which also come out quite amazing.
This book has changed my life. :)
By David Esq. on March 21, 2014
I wanted to start baking my own bread because of how difficult it is to get a decent loaf of bread that is not loaded with chemicals and preservatives.By David Esq. on March 21, 2014
I started out with some King Arthur Flour recipes available online, and quickly decided I wanted to try my hand at sourdough breads. I followed the instructions over at King Arthur Flour to create a starter, received a little advice from The Fresh Loaf forum, and then decided to buy this book.
As others have written, the book is not one that has hundreds of bread recipes in it, although there are actually quite a few. I have baked two loaves from the book -- the Basic Country Loaf, and the same bread with roasted walnuts. The breads have been amazing. And what is perhaps more exciting, the same dough makes fantastic pizza.
Is it worth the price? Well, it was to me. It was nice to have a set of instructions to read over a bunch of times before taking the plunge into making my first Tartine loaf. Chad Robertson gives a lot of detail, and quite frankly, the instructions are a bit overwhelming and could do with some serious editing. Not because they are confusing, but because they are very lengthy. There is nothing wrong with lengthy; but I encourage anybody reading this book to sit down at their computer and type up those portions of the instructions that they need to bake the basic country loaf, and then print those out. Otherwise you will find yourself needing to turn pages with sticky hands to figure out what you are supposed to do since the recipe spans many pages, and the book is too beautiful and expensive to get dirty.
If you are not familiar with bread baking, but you are willing to commit the time to learning and making this "no knead" bread, you won't be disappointed. But, I would do what I did first, and get a sourdough starter that is working nicely before buying the book. It will only be a huge frustration if you buy the book and never get the starter to work. While he gives instructions for creating a starter, I can't say with certainty that they will work for everybody. You can always try it after you've created your own following the advice from King Arther Flour or another source.
The process for the basic loaf boils down to this:
Take some of your starter (you can take it straight from the fridge, unfed), and build a levain with it. That just means adding water and flour to it, and letting it sit out on the counter for 12 hours or so.
Once the levain is ready (a spoonful of it will float in a bowl of water), you mix the rest of the flour and water and make a very sticky dough, which you will "turn" 4-6 times over the the course of 4 hours. Then you can divide the dough and make pizzas with it, or divide it and shape into loaves which will then "proof" in a bowl or basket, overnight in your fridge. The next morning, you can fire up the oven, and get baking.
He suggests the Lodge Combo Cooker, and that is what I purchased here on Amazon. It is basically two cast iron pans where one acts as a lid to the other, and traps the steam generated from the wet dough as it bakes.
I have never had a problem with my breads burning on top or on bottom, however, if you bake too low on the stove you may find that the bottoms burn. Baking in the middle rack as suggested, has always given me beautiful loaves. I've "scored" my bread (cut it before baking) with a sharp knife or with kitchen shears.
The breads make great grilled cheese, PB&J, toast and that is basically all I have done with them to date. They also taste great fresh out of the oven (well, after waiting a couple of hours).
I've added a photo of one of my best tasting loaves yet. You will see that I baked it rather dark. It does not follow any formula in the book though it is based entirely on the book's process using the same ratio of levain to flour, etc. It is just that altered the percentage of All Purpose, Whole Wheat and Whole Rye flours to suit what I had on hand.
Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast is also an excellent book with similar baking techniques (i.e., lodge combo cooker) but has both commercial yeast and sourdough recipes which also come out quite amazing.
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 18, 2022
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 23, 2022
Top reviews from other countries
Just Some Woman
Tediously Pretentious
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 12, 2018Catalin
Best sourdough recipe book. EVER!!!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 27, 2019
Best sourdough recipe book. EVER!!!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 27, 2019
I own quite a few bread recipes books, some which are focused on sourdough alone and some which are more focused on commercial yeast bread recipes from around the world. I am a keen baker and I have been baking with yeast and with sourdough starter for quite some time but I never quite managed to make a proper sourdough bread like the one I made after learning the technique from this book (see photos attached).Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 27, 2019
This book is the best bread recipe book I came across, by far. The way the techinique is explained in detail and the photos for every step of the eay makes it so easy.
I also loved the story of how the author started as an apprentice and worked for many great bakers. His passion for bread is inspirational. I love this book and I am looking forward to seeing more books like this released in the future.
Images in this review
GB
If you love baking Soutdough get this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 2, 2018
If you love baking Soutdough get this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 2, 2018
Been making bread for 20 years. Never had much success with Sourdough. Then I saw a video on utube about Tartine Bread and decided I had to buy this book.Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 2, 2018
Now I make great sourdough and it’s so easy. You can even leave the dough overnight in the fridge and bake it when it suits you.
Best bread book I’ve ever owned and I have a lot.
One thing you need to know is while you get a good loaf using a conventional oven with some hot water in a tray to create steam, you get a fantastic loaf using a Dutch Oven .
Images in this review
pipMonster
Fab book for sourdough
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 6, 2020XL
Very thorough recipe descriptions
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 28, 2018
