Tartine Bread: (Artisan Bread Cookbook, Best Bread Recipes, Sourdough Book) Hardcover – 12 Oct. 2010

If you want to make sourdough bread then the Tartine method is a great starting point. I have baked some wonderful loaves using their recipes.The book itself is a joy to hold with a soft and tactile cover. Inside is well laid out with some lovely artistic photos of the process. The main sourdough recipe is given in great detail and is followed by a section that discusses each step in much more detail. I found that very useful.The resulting bread was really nice. Even my first bake was a real success and subsequent bakes, with guidance from the book enabled me to tune the bread to how I liked.Negative points ? The artistic photos are lovely, however B&W photos maybe are less clear than colour. (Look lovely tho). Also only half the book is recipes for bread and half is about what to do with leftover bread. Leftover sourdough bread? In my family ? Never!All in all though, this is a lovely book. It’s both informative and interesting and a really good guide for budding sourdough’ers.The bread is pretty tasty too!

The media could not be loaded. 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).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.

If like me you have a passion for really great bread, then understanding the author's own passion is for me an essential aspect of his recipes. The first part of the book (a chapter you can skip if you like) takes you on a journey of his discovery and bread baking apprenticeships. For me this set the whole scene for what was to come and gave me a deeper appreciation for the slightly different styles and techniques which followed.Chad outlines techniques and timings that other books leave out. I have many many books on the subject of making bread and this is the only one that gives you a real understanding of WHEN the starter/leaven/dough is ready to move on to the next stage in order to maximise flavor and rise. A complete eye-opener!I simply can't recommend this book enough and will definitely be visiting the bakery store when I am next in San Francisco.

A good book but not for a novice. Recipes cover several pages and there is a lot of text so is easy to lose track of where you are if your not careful.It is great at teaching you the way bakers think about ingredients and techniques.My first attempt was very stressful and was close to giving up, but you just need to stick with the process and have faith as my first attempt at bread looked amazing (it looks so good I haven’t even sliced it yet)

I'm going to be honest with you. I failed my fist 11 "Basic Country Dough" attempts because I didn't use a cast iron pot. I played with the hydration, tried different brands of flour.. But after 11 time I was adept at every step of the dough development. All I got were fat tasty pancakes with still more open/wet crumb than store bought sourdough.At 12th attempt within 2 weeks I put my dough in an airtight cast iron pot to bake. Voila. The most beautiful loaves I've ever baked.I've also tried the whole wheat, walnut country, croissant, olive oil brioche; and have no interest in the weird spread recipes in the book. I simply put Nutella, Mascarpone+Honey, or Peanutbutter on my bread. No need for anchovy tartare, ew. Keep in mind you can use the brioche recipe to make sticky buns/cinnamon buns although they are not in the book.If you buy this book and decide to try it out: work hard to master the first recipe; all recipes in the book use the same dough/technique. Once you get it right, you can simply add other ingredients and try out the other recipes.If your dough seems "wet" after 3 hours of bulk fermentation; try giving it a good 15 minutes knead in the stand mixer after you add the salt. If you are in a high altitude area, try reducing its hydration to 70%. Don't do more than 4-5 turns during the preshaping before the bench rest. Your dough should have risen by 30% before that. It will feel "full" but not like a wet sticky gummy substance at that time.The 30%-40% rise is important. If you feel thousand tiny bubbles bursting when you last fold and stretch your dough, and it feels "full"; then it's ready to stop the bulk fermentation. Could be 3 hours or 6. Aim to create surface tension on the top dome of the dough during the preshaping "turning". The bottom of the dough sticks to the UNFLOURED working surface and you softly guide the edges with your floured hand and a dough knife to stretch the gluten strands in a spiral. When there is tension; stop and start the bench rest. If your dough looks like it's proofing too fast and goes over the banneton; immediately refrigerate for 8 hours and bake a retarded (lol) version of the bread. Otherwise it will feel like soup and you risk getting a fat pancake because of over-fermentation (breaks the gluten which will help in oven spring)Sealing the steam in is important in the first 20 minutes of baking. Make sure to heat the oven up with your lodge/cast iron pot inside it for 1 hour and use a cheap oven thermometer to read 500F.It was difficult for me to get the first "correct" loaf, but you will gain confidence and try out the other recipes once done.Also you will never want to eat bread other than the one you baked at home. This has been the best bread I have tasted. I finished my first loaf in a few hours with spreads and in sandwiches. It was so good!