Laurence King How to raise a loaf and fall in love with sourdough

I used to be scared of sourdough. When it started creeping in everywhere, I thought, oh it’s fine, it’s just a fad, it won’t stick around. When I said to my Australian friend irritatingly, I really wish everywhere offered something other than sourdough, she scoffed and said that’s the only thing they eat in Australia! So I questioned myself. Why didn’t I like it? Why did I find an innocent, creative, lovingly, really long processed bread so offensive? It’s just bread!It slowly dawned on me, it was the way that the bread was treated. Toasted to within an inch of its life, so hard I would nibble the middle like a mouse, worrying that if I bit into the crust all my teeth would fall out like the dream you used to have as a kid.So I started to explore it a bit further, asked for it not to be toasted, explored sourdough other stuff like muffins and scones and I really really liked it.Then this book caught my eye. Simple, straightforward, photogenic. But it questioned me. You know you like sourdough but why don’t you fall in love with sourdough! Nothing wrong with jumping on the bandwagon if it’s something that makes you happy. So I bought it, ooh I’m so whimsical! Excited by the prospect of having an affair with a piece of bread and not cheating on my husband, I embarked on delving into it. Have I made sourdough yet? No that’s this week. Have I read this book cover to cover, marvelled at the writing, the photos, the instructions as if someone has talked me through it? Oh yes. Have I fallen in love with sourdough, absolutely. Beautiful book, go on you know you want to.

Initially I was thrilled by this little well illustrated book but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding (or in this case baking). I followed the starter instructions to the letter but when mine developed a brown liquid topping I didn’t have a clue what to do. Internet searching revealed it as ‘hooch’ but my point is that there is no starter troubleshooting. On to the baking I tried the first bread recipe and again followed the lengthy steps - which would in my opinion been better laid out as bullet style steps not wordy narrative- but it resulted in a wet dough that spread rather too much. It tasted delicious and had good open crumb but as it had spread it was massive but rather flat. Plus my tea towel has terminal dough adhesions! All the recipes look enticing but most are too much for a two person household with no advice given as to how to adapt quantities. I shall persevere but probably with a better beginners’ resource.

I have been mucking around with bread for more years than I care to remember, but this book puts everything to do with sourdough into simple, easy to understand and logical steps. I have bought this book as a gift for several novice bakers simply because by following the various steps, techniques and recipes almost anyone can produce fantastic sourdough bread. I can't rate it highly enough!

Being new to sourdough baking I was finding many of the recipes I'd seen elsewhere off putting as they seemed so complicated and/or long winded. However, this book gives a basic first recipe - done in a few hours - that encouraged me to give it a try - and I'm so pleased that I did. It's given me the confidence to continue and try some of the other recipes too.BTW - the bread tastes yum too using only flour, water and salt!

If you buy this, ignore the quantities of the ingredients in the getting started bit - they're completely wrong. Follow the instructions and the dough for your first loaf will be little more than batter.Then, after you've ignored the first part of the book, you may as well ignore the rest - it doesn't get any better.Shame the author didn't seem to test out his recipes as written in the book. There's not much point in writing a guide for beginners if you don't bother guiding them correctly.