Classic Sourdoughs, Revised: A Home Baker's Handbook Paperback – July 12, 2011

This is an excellent reference for home bakers who want to understand how to create authentic sourdough breads. It's not complicated and does not require any special equipment. The original edition of this book has long been one of my favorites, and I really like the updated information in the revised edition.One of the biggest improvements is the simplified directions in the chapter "Putting It All Together". In my opinion this is the heart of the book. In just a few pages it explains very clearly what is happening in your sourdough culture and how to handle it correctly. It made me a better baker, and I am having more fun experimenting with recipes and adapting them to my taste.Another great addition is the "No-Knead Sourdough" recipe section. I was intrigued by the simplicity of the basic recipe. It worked beautifully for me. And with a slight adjustment to the loaf proof (lower temperature, longer time) I can now easily fit baking fresh sourdough bread into my weekday work schedule. The recipe worked equally well for rye bread.My favorite recipe section in the book is probably also the most unique - the one on Middle Eastern breads. It's brought to life by the authors' personal experiences from living and traveling in the Middle East. I love making fresh "Khbuz Arabi" (pita bread) when we have guests. They bake in just 5 minutes, the guests love watching them puff up, and they are delicious hot out of the oven. For a perfectly authentic version, and extra food for conversation, you could use the author's "La Giza" culture, collected from an ethnic bakery in Egypt.At the end of the book is a small section that describes the sourdough cultures collected by the authors and available on their website (Sourdoughs International). It does not come across as a pitch but rather as sharing their passion for the history and variety of sourdough cultures.I grew up in Germany on excellent rye and whole grain sourdough breads. Many years ago when I moved to the US and experienced serious bread withdrawal, I got Ed Wood's "New Zealand Culture for rye" and have been baking with it ever since. It makes fantastic rustic rye breads, though I tend to omit the extra ingredients (molasses, milk, and butter) listed in the book's rye recipes. Now Ed Wood has a new Polish rye sourdough culture and I am tempted to try it.

This is a fantastic book. It includes the history and science of making sourdough bread, as well as the best collection of bread recipes from around the world that I've ever seen. The amount of effort that the authors invested here is amazing, you will not see anything like this in an online post. I had already been making sourdough for years when I bought the book, and I still learned a few new things. At first I read it but didn't use it because I was intimidated by their "proofing box method" but at some point I just decided to proof in the open air, as usual, and the breads have been great. I understand why they wanted to create this way of controlling acidity vs. rise but for most home bakers it's probably not necessary to exercise that level of control. I enjoy going with the flow of the seasons -- so in the height of summer, the bread rises quicker and may taste slightly more sour. In the winter, I might need to put it by a radiator or warm oven and give it more time to rise. It's not important to me to get exactly the same results every time, I enjoy the seasonal variation. That being said, if you follow all the other directions in this book you will learn a lot and be eating great bread. Enjoy!

I wasn't expecting the lovely historical information about sourdough, in the front of the book. That was a nice perk! The amount of recipes (and ease of following them) is fantastic, both for bread and other sourdough items (pretzels, bagels, flatbreads, etc).My only beef with the book is that they swear by (and their recipes are constructed using) a proofing box method for sourdough. It might be the best thing ever, but I'm not going to go buy and build (and find the room somewhere in the kitchen) a proofing box. I'll proof my dough the same way it historically has been- with time and heat, as consistently as possible. It would have been nice for the recipes to not rely on proofing box methods are integral to them....which just means that, as someone without a proofing box, I have to do a little guesswork with these recipes on whether my dough is ready to continue to the next step or not.Otherwise, I find this book very helpful for figuring out what to do with my sourdough starter!

I got this book from my local library and tried it out. I loved the results so much, I just had to buy the book for myself. When I was at the library, I had gotten a few other sourdough books, too. This one has virtually no pictures and looks like it is from the 70s which made me wonder if it was outdated. Fortunately, I also had the thought, "But it's sourdough--how much is going to change?". Despite the other books LOOKING much more appealing, the more I read of this one vs. the others, the more convinced I was that Ed Wood really knew what he was talking about.The author also runs a web site (sourdoughsinternational) where you can buy various strains of different cultures. I bought the San Fransisco culture (which we are all familiar with) and the South African culture (which is supposedly most adapted to whole wheat flour). Both are fantastic. The South African culture is very different from what I was expecting and took a few bites to get used to it, but it, along with the help of the whole wheat over white flour, has a much more complex, full body flavor and I'm starting to prefer it, I think.One word of warning--keeping sourdough cultures is a bit like keeping a pet--you have to feed it, give it a place to live, and periodically clean up after it. It does take some time, esp. at the beginning. However, unlike a pet, you also get to eat it... and it's delicious! Also, as you get into the groove, it's pretty minimal to maintain, although the additional proofing required does make the actual bread making take much longer than using conventional yeast.