Classic Sourdoughs, Revised: A Home Baker's Handbook Kindle Edition

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 This one has virtually no pictures and looks like it is from the 70s which made me wonder if it was outdated.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.

Very useful Book! I'm new to the world of baking and sourdough was a mystery for me.I found this book to be a a very useful guide on growing, maintaining and baking amazing bread with my very own sourdough culture!However i do have to say that now i use this book as more of a guide when baking. I found over the last 6 or so months i've been fine tuning the recipes and processes to suit my culture and my baking environment. My proofing times are quite a bit shorter than those described in the book (which isn't to say they're wrong) i just found my culture is very active and needs less time especially on the second rise.One tip i'd suggest to anyone else who is starting out is to keep notes on things like consistency of the starter culture and then the dough as you're baking.I was stuck a few months ago when all of a sudden my finished loaves where crap. They wouldn't spring anymore in the oven and they turned out very flat and unimpressive. I managed (through trial and error ) to work out that my starter culture wasn't hydrated enough in combination with a longer than needed have second rise.This book is great if you want a very in depth explanation of the whole process..I have to say i was a little overwhelmed after watching all the different ways to do it on youtube or in forums.This book can be a little daunting at first. but once you understand the principals outlined in the book its really quite easy and fun!These days i've started to rely more on judging the consistency of my starter culture (keeping it like a thick pancake mixture or a thick milkshake)and then judging when the starter is fully activated. Proofing time varies for me now depending on what the dough looks and feels like rather than strict times and measurements. By doing this i am able to recreate great loaves every time now :) and now i'm like "why was i ever hesitant to get into sourdough?!" :)Highly recommend this book for anyone with little or no experience in baking bread!Its really not that hard to start doing it!

Sourdough is my favorite bread. San Francisco sourdough bread is easily and readily available in stores in my part of California. I’ve been baking my own off and on through the years. I found that during this pandemic I have to consider each trip to the store very carefully. I don’t like not having fresh bread available when I want it.I made the decision to once again delve into sourdough baking. I have several books on the subject. After reading through and refreshing my memory I thought I’d take a look online. I came across Ed Wood’s website, and consequently bought his book here on amazon.com. I also obtained a San Francisco sourdough culture.Of all the books I own, I find this one to be the best. The instructions are clear and concise, and the book is well structured. I bake my sourdough bread in my Römertopf (cloche, or clay pot). By the time I was into my third baking session I produced a loaf that I liked better than Boudin’s.I am looking forward to trying many of the other recipes in the book. For a while regular flour was difficult to come by during this pandemic, so I bought some types of flour less commonly used. I was happy to find recipes for those flours in this book. (Rye and Kamut come to mind). I have always made my own pizza from yeast dough, and now I’m looking forward to sourdough pizza crust!Just having my first loaves of sourdough bread turn out so well was worth the money I spent on the book.

Classic Sourdoughs, by Ed and Jean Wood: 2/21/19 - I've made several recipes (cinnamon raisin nut sourdough, Swedish rye, English muffins and cranberry pumpkin) from this book, which I got because there were several rye bread recipes. The technique isn't as complicated as some other artisan bread books, although it's a bit challenging. I recommend reading the directions multiple times. The flavor was good, but I had difficulty getting my starter to recover from "washing," so some of the loaves didn't rise as much as they should. I also use hard white wheat in recipes that don't call for it, and it takes longer to rise (but tastes great).

Although this appears to be a set text for sourdoughistsas, I found it quite unhelpful in several ways, which I will list, not necessarily in order of importance. First, there are no pictures, so it is hard, especially for the novice, to know what you are making will or should look like. Next, the recipes seem to have been made by cutting and pasting the same words from one recipe to the next, which while it makes for concision, has all the allure of an old fashioned technical manual. Next, Ed Wood specifies ambient kitchen temperatures that maybe ok in his part of the world, but where I live (Cornwall, in winter) they are simply unattainable. Next, he uses some sort of makeshift box for proving dough that is made from a polystyrene box and a lightbulb that can prove dough at precise temperatures, such as 95 degrees Fahrenheit. This sort of apparatus is simply not practicable for most people. Finally, he uses sugar and milk in his recipes, which to my mind make sourdough bread less healthy. I prefer the recipe I found on line at a website called Little Chef, Big Knife, run by one Emma Christensen, which is much less prescriptive and seems to be designed by humans for humans... On the plus side, he has a wide range of recipes and I have found in making sourdough that it is always useful to see different ways of doing things. For example, Emma Christensen uses a levain or "sponge" to start her loaves, where Ed Wood doesn't.

I bought this after reading the "look inside" extracts in some detail. These led me to expect a more wide-ranging, in-depth coverage of the subject. In fact, the introductory chapters were fascinating and I would have liked more of the same. Having said that, the Woods have dealt with the subject with admirable conciseness, including enough background to fascinate, and not so much as to become tedious. Cultures and their idiosyncracies are clearly explained, and the book deals with a wide range of different grains, some of which I'd never heard of.The instructions for making sourdough breads are well-written, but not idiot-proof. Sourdough is not an idiot-proof discipline. You'll need to read well and understand, not just dive in to the first recipes. It will certainly help if you have previous experience of making bread the old-fashioned way (ie not in a bread machine). The recipes themselves are astonishingly varied, with breads and other sourdough delicacies from round the world. I have only tried the basics so far, but can't wait to branch out and experiment.The recipes are in the American style. Quantities are given in "cups" but metric equivalents are also supplied. At times the conversions are confusing; translating a quart as "a liter" (sic) only makes sense when you remember that an American pint is much smaller than a British pint. However, as bread making is as much an art as a science, this shouldn't make it too tricky for UK cooks to use.If you want to understand more about the story of bread, how its living components come together to make it, and discover an extra range of recipes of all sorts for making yeast-raised things (many of which can easily be adapted to using wild yeast cultures, by the way), I can strongly recommend the old-fashioned but still unbeaten  English Bread and Yeast Cookery , by the great Elizabeth David English Bread and Yeast Cookery

I brought this book for my mother, who is an eager home baker and makes her own bread. She has read some of Ed Wood’s other books, and this looked like a really good book for her to have and one she would use often.What we really appreciate in this book (as I make bread as well) is that the recipes are all quite compact. The processes are explained clearly and precisely in the beginning of the book, and the author has gone to pains to explain the differing types of flour, how they work etc. Then the recipes themselves are just about all contained in a single page of clearly laid out instructions. There’s nothing I dislike more in a bread book than recipes, or rather instructions which the author seems to insist you must carry out precisely or woe betide you and your bread. Breadmaking should not be something that scares off prospective bakers; rather, it is an experience of creativity where your senses are brought to bear on the basic ingredients of flour, water, salt and yeast. While there are certain rules it is best to follow, and you learn tips and tricks as you progress through your own breadmaking, it really comes down also to the baker’s ‘feel’ for the dough and the process. This book encourages that, yet contains the baker within sensible and practical recipes which offer a huge variety of breads and bread products for any baker to tackle.The recipes in this book, and there are many, are all sourdough-based, and the author has also included making sourdough breads in a breadmaking machine for those who choose to do this. I like to get my hands in the dough and knead and pummel it myself, and there are plenty of recipes I am keen to try in this book (I’ll just have to give my mother some so I can borrow her book!). Definitely recommended.

Exellent

Excellent Sourdough baking book - great advice on achieving consistent results with lost of different types of flour, with recipes from around the world. Probably not ideal for the beginner, but perfect for taking your sourdough baking to the next level.