Very Thorough and easy to follow recipes! I'm happy to say that I've tried every recipe in this book a db they were all a success. Lots of photo that explains and the troubleshooting section is too very helpful.

What a timely and relevant book in the age of sourdough experimentation! The pandemic lockdowns pushed many a home baker into the realms of sourdough and Jane Mason's "Homemade Sourdough' is a great starting off point! Whether you are looking for specialty dough inspiration or just how to make your own English muffins, this is the book for you. With easy to follow and carefully laid out recipes paired with yummy photos any reader is sure to find inspiration within these pages! I for one know that I will be trying out the Peasant Bread recipe once I can actually keep my starter alive past the first day. Happy baking!

I wanted to read and review this book, but unfortunately I found the sentences were out of order, so I wasn't able to.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. I love making bread and this is a great addition to my recipe collection. The past year or so making sourdough is becoming more and more popular. I cannot wait to give this a try. I will be going back to this book again and again in the future.

I absolutely love sourdough and I like baking my own bread, but I have never tried making sourdough. It has always seemed really intimidating. This cookbook really breaks it down and makes it seem accessible. I still haven't made any (lol) but I now feel like I could!

Homemade Sourdough was a nice book for beginners and experienced sourdough makers alike.

I thought information and techniques were well explained. While I do not like the kneading method (I prefer folding method) some of these recipes want me to give it another go.

While I enjoyed the flours used, for where I live they are not super accessible and I don't know how it would be for others who are new to this technique of baking.

For newbies I appreciated that there were several terms were listed to explain the same thing so people can easily learn the many, many terms in sourdough making.

I thought the recipes were well thought out. They would also be a good jumping board for trying your own flavours. I am excited to try some of these that have milk in them, as I have never added that to my dough.

I received an eARC from Quarto Publishing and Chartwell Books. All opinions are 100% my own.

I've been jealous of my friends' Instagram ready sourdough loaves for quite some time and have been wanting to try it myself, but it always seemed daunting. Now I need worry no more as this is a really simple foolproof guide and has plenty of ideas for jazzing the bread up once you're confident with the basics. I am ready to dough! (pun on go, anyone?!!)

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Let’s be honest, after almost a year of quarantine, who here hasn’t tried making sourdough?! I got into making bread about a year or so before the pandemic hit and have been routinely reading new bread books ever since.

Homemade Sourdough started like many of the other bread books I’ve read, with sections dedicated to educating the reader about the basics of bread and the ingredients and equipment that you’ll need. Then it was onto the recipes! One thing that I really enjoyed about Homemade Sourdough was that it wasn’t just loaves of bread included in the recipes. Right off the bat, there was a pancake recipe and waffles! As a rye loving girl, I also enjoyed that there was an entire section devoted to rye breads!

I honestly think that homemade sourdough would be a great book for beginner and experienced bread makers alike. The variety of recipes was amazing! I can’t wait to try them all!

Cookbooks, to me, is either poorly done or very well done. This one is really, really good. Love sourdough bread so am patiently waiting for my starter to be ready. I think I’ll start with the Sour Cream Waffles. Then make wheat sourdough starter so I can try my hand at Onion Olive Bread. Or Cheese and Onion Bread. Cranberry Nut Bread sounds delicious. Love the smell of homemade bread when it’s baking in the oven. Oh so many new recipes to try! The photos of the various breads are very helpful in deciding which one to try first (or make it harder). Directions are clear and precise. This is one cookbook that will get a lot of use over the years.
I received an advanced reader copy for free from NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving my review.

An excellent book for those who are either starting out on their sourdough journey, or who are wanting to expand their repertoire.

Really enjoyed the sourdough recipes and am excited to try these with my family. The recipes were very easy to used and I love the amount of time needed to prepare these for my family. I would highly recommend this book to friends and family!!

Homemade Sourdough is nicely laid out, easy-to-follow, and fairly comprehensive. There are many photographs to explain the points and I especially liked that there is a troubleshooting section to quickly help you fix bread issues such as bread that comes out as dense or with huge holes. At the same time, there are odd areas of missing information and the typeset is small enough to give you a headache reading it.

The recipes are what you would expect: wheat, rye, flavored wheat, sweet breads and buns, and various batter items such as pancakes and waffles. The tips are intermixed throughout, which was a bit daunting when e.g., trying to find the basics for kneading correctly. On one hand, I like that the tips for rye bread are with the rye bread recipes. But at the same time, they are not listed in the table of contents and so can get lost easily. It does make the introduction small but it can be frustrating to track things down when it comes time to bake.

The book is fairly comprehensive - storing, different flours, and explaining why you need to do certain steps (e.g., why you knead and what to watch for when doing it). But then at the same time, it'll tell you that if a dough is overkneaded, it is no longer good and needs to be thrown away (without explaining why overkneading means the dough is ruined). But on the whole, I have to say this this has been one of the most comprehensive on the subject but definitely does not feel onerous to go through and do the recipes.

The author has a very practical approach that is especially appreciated. The recipes don't require super special flours or anything beyond a nice proofing basket and a plastic bread scraper. You won't have to put the starter on a pedestal and pray to it daily that it ferments nicely - I really liked that she makes it all sound very easy and is very encouraging along the way. I also liked that the author spent time explaining when/how to add fresh ingredients like fruit and nuts - and how best to prepare those items before adding to the dough.

There is extra information in the end about bread and health - as well as why sourdough is a bit better than your normal loaves in terms of helping your digestion. As well, there is a small resources guide, index, and glossary. A top 10 sourdough tips (also at the end) is a good thing to check through just before starting to keep the making process smooth.

In all, nicely laid out, with plenty of pictures and a lot of good and practical tips. There are many recipes including your traditionally San Francisco sourdough to various buns, muffins, and flavored breads. Just note that the text is incredibly small and difficult to read as a result. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Another great resource to add to the growing library of books helping those of who have added baking to their pandemic repertoire. Lots of interesting info and enticing ideas.

Good info on getting started with sourdough at home. The book includes info for both rye starter and wheat starter, and it is based on keeping starter in the fridge - a much more approachable technique for most home bakers.
The book covers ingredients and equipment. Recipes are in chapters on batter breads, rye, wheat, flavored wheat, and sweet breads and buns. Many recipes have photos, and there are also technique and troubleshooting photos included. I enjoyed that there are tips and info in here I haven't seen elsewhere.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love to bake bread and I have tried recipes from a number or bread baking books. However, I always felt that sourdough was something for advanced bakers. So, I was too shy to try it. After reading this book I feel ready to give it a go.
This is a mine of information about techniques, ingredients, baking techniques etc. What I found very nice was the amount of details about how the starter should look like, how the dough should feel like when you work with it, common mistakes one can make, little disasters (and how everything is always nice toasted) and many tips for all stages of the process. There are good pictures that illustrate the techniques and the recipes. As a newcomer to sourdough I appreciated the effort made by the author to make the whole process as familiar and friendly as possible, and to stick to simple ingredients. And there are many recipes to choose from.
I am ready to start with my first sourdough and put in practice all the good advice from this book. Thanks to the author on behalf of the sourdough rookies (and surely of many experienced bakers too).

Many thanks to NetGalley, Quarto Publishing and Jane Mason for the privilege of reading and reviewing this books thanks to an advance reader’s copy.

Homemade Sourdough is a technique tutorial and cooking guide with recipes developed and curated by Jane Mason. Due out 29th Dec 2020 from Quarto on their Chartwell Books imprint, it's 160 pages and will be available in hardcover format.
Despite being prizewinning expert bakers, the authors have written an accessible, understandable, usable book about sourdough for the rest of us. An introductory chapter covers the basics including demystifying the process, the different steps involved, ingredients, and moving on to a very (very) basic tutorial for making and maintaining a starter. This is one of those "if I can do it, ANYONE can do it" situations. It's not hard and for a long time I've been intimidated by the process, but I just followed the instructions and it worked without any tears.The author has done a good job of breaking down the basic tools and supplies and a good tutorial for a basic loaf to get readers started.

The recipes/tutorials are arranged by base flour (rye, wheat, flavored wheat, sweet breads and buns). Recipes include a short description, ingredients in a bullet style list in a sidebar, and step by step directions. Ingredient measures are provided in American standard and metric (yay!). Most (but not all) ingredients will be easy to source at a relatively well stocked grocery. Some specialty flours might need to be bought from bakers' supply or a specialist grocer. The photography is not abundant, not all of the loaves are accompanied by pictures. The photos which are included are clear and attractive and serving suggestions are appealing and appropriate. The tutorials are accompanied by step-by-step photos which are clear and easy to follow.

The book includes a cross referenced index with ingredients and recipes listed. There are many recipes included in each category; definitely enough to keep bakers busy for a long while. This would be a superlative gift or for the home cook's library. I couldn't think of any sourdough recipes which weren't included (and indeed there are many more in this volume that I was previously familiar with).

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Great book to get into Sourdough.
I especially liked the structure. An introduction with the basics (note, you do need some equipment, so think about whether you want to invest before you get started), then a breakdown of ingredients and equipment, and then an easy-to- follow line to recipes. Choose from two simple basic doughs (pages listed in the introduction) and then slowly work your way up to the more intricate ones.
My personal favourite: The troubleshooting with pictures! As a very bad baker, I have an entire gallery of fails, but when you don’t know how to bake, it is sometimes hard to identify the problem exactly (if you did, you would already know how to bake), so comparing your result to others helps a lot

I was really excited to have a chance to review this sourdough book by Jane Mason and having just eaten my first few slices of Rosemary Bread can report a 100% success. I have been baking sourdough for several months now and have read two very scientific and, I have to say complicated books which have resulted in more failures than successes. Mason's book is easy to follow, simple to plan in terms of timeframes and has a wide range of interesting recipes using sourdough starter. Deliciously sounding waffles, rye breads and Austrian Christmas bread all sound very tempting and will keep me busy in the kitchen. Thank you to Netgalley and Chartwell books for the chance to review this delightful book.

I have struggled using sourdough before but feel like this book addressed some of the problems that I had. So after reading this book I think I will give it another go. A great number of recipes. Easy directions. Beautiful pictures. I look forward to expanding my sourdough horizons!

Homemade Sourdough


This book deals with two types of sourdough - wheat and rye. Sourdough bread is unique due to the fact that the starter dough sits for many hours before it is used, unlike regular bread which sits for a shorter time period.
The first recipe is for basic sourdough batter bread - it uses sourdough starter, flour, water, salt, sugar, butter, milk and eggs to make a flavorful bread.
The sourdough starter, water and flour are mixed together and left to rise for 8 hours. Then the remaining ingredients are added to it, it sits for 3 hours, and then it is baked for forty minutes.
You are given the directions for making sourdough starter, you are told how to refresh it, and you are told what happens if you leave it at room temperature for too long. (mold).
The recipe for sourdough waffles can be partially prepared the night before and then finished for breakfast.
The recipe for rye bread uses rye starter, rye flour, salt and rye flakes. The preparation method is similar for wheat sourdough bread, but the 2nd rising is longer and the finished product is thinner than wheat bread.
You will find recipes for Swedish Limpa bread, Pumpernickel bread, Caraway bread, Pita bread, Gingerbread and Christmas bread!
Follow the directions closely to produce flavorful, chewy bread every time!