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Books on bread baking

There are so many books on baking bread; a quick search on Amazon UK brings up nearly 9000. The books below are my favourites, chiefly because the recipes are easy to follow, and more importantly, they do what it says on the tin. Most of all I owe a great deal to the wonderful recipes in Dan Lepard's book "The Handmade Loaf", and to Andrew Whitley's Bread Matters for communicating the excitement of experimenting and trying new things.

The Handmade loaf

Dan Lepard : Mitchell Beazley 2004

Another beautifully produced book with the authors own photographs. A splendid selection of recipes from around the world all very succinctly explained, interleaved with stories of the bakers Dan Lepard met on his travels. This is the one I keep going back to for ideas.

Bread Matters: The State of Modern Bread

Andrew Whitley : Forth Estate 2006

There is a scary diatribe at the start of this book on the evils of modern industrial bread baking which is quite motivating; if that is what is going on then yes, I will bake my own bread. If you want to understand the bread making processes, and the properties of all the ingredients, then this book is for you. There is so much useful information to help you to make your own breads by adapting recipes from any other book.

Bread - River Cottage Handbook

Daniel Stevens 2009

Very good on sourdoughs, good descriptions of basics and lots of recipes which seem like they will work. Logical, clear, no flannel but watch out for typos or sloppy cut&paste in the recipes!.

The Tassajara Bread Book

Ed Brown : My copy is from 1972, but there is a 1996 reprint available on Amazon.

This is a very good set of simple variations on yeasted and non yeasted breads and cakes. The descriptions on how to make wholemeal yeasted bread are excellent, but there is not much on the why.

Dough - Simple Contemporary Bread

Richard Bertinet : Kyle Cathie 2005

Absolutely stunning layout and photographs combined with crystal clear instructions. The sections of the book lead on from white dough, through olive dough and brown dough to sweet doughs; very logical. Again there is not much on why we do things but the recipes just work.

Scottish Cookery

Catherine Brown 1985

This book is not specifically on bread, but it does have 25 pages on oat & barley recipes for farls, bannocks etc, and 40 pages on cakes and baking all from a Scottish perspective. There is stacks of background information and the methods in the recipes are clear with alternative ingredients given. It is such a nice book to read, but the recipes work too.

How Baking Works

Paula Figoni 2004

Hard going, not a book to read from cover to cover, but if there is some mystery about baking you want to clear up, it is a good place to go.

Bourke Street Bakery

Brilliant pictures and beautifully produced. Good explanations. The recipes work as described - good rationale to everything AND it covers Australian pie making!

English Bread and Yeast cookery

Elizabeth David

This is a mine of information and a good read. Maybe dated and splendidly opinionated in places but so much useful technical and interesting historical text.

A Baker's Tale

The Specialities of James Burgess from One Devonshire Gardens : Catherine Brown

It is a success story about a Glasgow man rising from army skivvie to top bread baker, "...... was then posted to Gibraltar where he faced charges of 'disrespect for the Army Catering Manual' - the sensible decision was taken to transfer him to the Officers' Mess! " Very short, with great recipes. Motivational.