Chad Robertson: Bread Book Review

Bread Book: Ideas and Innovations from the Future of Grain, Flour, and Fermentation

For those who follow us, you know how much we love a good bread book.

In this week's cookbook review, we decided to return to this theme and bring you the review of the Bread Book of the legendary baker Chad Robertson.

A decade ago, Chad Robertson taught a generation of bread bakers to replicate the creamy crumb, crackly crust, and unparalleled flavor of his world-famous Tartine bread.

Now, in Bread Book, Chad and Tartine's director of bread, Jennifer Latham, explain how high-quality, sustainable, locally sourced grain and flours respond to hydration and fermentation to make great bread even better.

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An Endless Learning Process

One of the most rewarding things we can do in the kitchen is bread. The fact that the learning process of bread-making never ends fascinates us.

Every day is a new study. Scores of factors, including the temperature, ambient humidity, type of grain, and age of the flour, influence how the dough develops. To achieve consistent results, we must make hundreds of micro-adjustments every time we make bread.

It's this kind of knowledge, temperate, humidity, flours, type of grain that Bread Book is all about. Throughout the book, Chad unveils what's next in bread, drawing on a decade of innovation in grain farming, flour milling, and fermentation with all-new ground-breaking formulas and techniques for making his most nutrient-rich and sublime loaves, rolls, and more.

Navigation through the book is straightforward, thanks to its structure. The more theoretical content regarding the different types of flour, utensils, fermentation processes, etc., is all grouped and can be found at the beginning of the book. After this, you'll have 14 chapters explicitly dedicated to a type of bread, including Country Bread, Kid's Bread, Gluten-Free Bread, Pizza, Fermented Pasta, and much more.

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From Country Bread to Fermented Pasta

As we mentioned above, the Bread Book offers many different options for all types of breads, tortillas, pizza, fermented pasta, and much more.

Bread Book promises to delight any baker with sixteen brilliant formulas for naturally leavened doughs. These formulas include country bread, rustic baguettes, flatbreads, rolls, pizza, and vegan and gluten-free loaves, plus tortillas, crackers, and fermented pasta made with a discarded sourdough starter, to name a few.

Like in Chad's previous book, like Tartine Bread or Tartine Book No.3, all the instructions are easy to understand, and the formulas are achievable to be followed by experienced or novice bakers.

With step-by-step photos of essential baking steps such as diving the dough, pre-shaping, shaping, and scoring it, anyone will be able to produce incredible bread at home.

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Final Thoughts

‍Bread Book is an excellent addition to any cookbook collection. More than giving you brilliant formulas for naturally leavened doughs, this book offers you a glimpse into the future of bread. It's the right book for anyone interested in bread who wants to know about Ideas and Innovations and what's next in the bread industry.