Slow Dough: Real Bread: Bakers' secrets for making amazing long-rise loaves at home by Chris Young

Slow Dough: Real Bread by Chris Young

Blurb:

Making bread is an ancient craft and a fulfilling experience, a skill that is learnt by touch and feel. There is nothing more satisfying than kneading, pulling, stretching and punching the dough, using a little yeast and sugar to transform its lumpen beginnings, as if by alchemy, into a loaf. But it's not all hard work. To get a truly wonderful bread, you can use a starter to do the work for you and it does wonders for the texture, flavours and aromas of the final bread. The Real Bread Campaign has been running since 2008, encouraging people to get baking and raising awareness of the additives that exist in most shop-bought loaves. In Slow Dough: Real Bread, learn secrets from the campaign's network of expert bakers to make a huge array of exciting slow-rise breads at home. Whether you want to make a Caraway Seed Rye Bread, a Fougasse Flatbread or an All-Butter Brioche, in these recipes you'll learn how to make different starters for different breads, as well as the fundamental processes (many of which you can just sit and wait for): fermenting, kneading, first proof, last rising, and baking. In a world of mass-production and redundant additives, bread being among the worst offenders, this book, about real craftsmanship, is like a breath of fresh air.


Due to food intolerances, I've been baking all our bread for quite some time now and I've read a fair number of books about bread and baking and everything around it as well. When I got the chance to read this book, I was really curious and eager to try new recipes. And I must say that this book is simply amazing! In here you will find everything you need to know about bread and the different kinds of bread whether it be pre-ferment, long-ferment or sourdough.

You will learn how to make them from scratch, how to nurture your own sourdough and much more.
Then you get the chance to use this new knowledge to bake a bunch of delicious breads, some simple but savory, some intriguing, some sweet, some tart, some...no matter what, they all look and sound delicious. I couldn't try all of them yet but up to now I was never disappointed. The recipes are easy to follow and the photos are just gorgeous.

All recipes are donated by Real Bread bakers who are also part of the Real Bread Campaign.
So...if you want to bake your own bread or want to try other recipes, other varieties of bread, this is the book to turn to. Oh, and don't worry if you tried too many recipes at once, there's a whole section with recipes for leftovers, be it leftover bread or leftover sourdough.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this book and if you still wonder if it is worth all the work - yes, it is. My family loves the freshly baked bread and even the kids from the neighbourhood come in when I am baking, hoping to be in time for a slice of fresh bread.

★★★★★