A Bread Baking Kickstart

Making Dough at Home in Your Spare Time

by Daniel H Steinberg

The only thing better than the smell of fresh baked bread is the taste! Whether you’re an accomplished baker or just getting started, this book will put you in control of your dough by giving you formulas and techniques with the context you need to make them your own.

This work was written and produced entirely by the author. We are proud to be distributing it.

The book begins with pancakes and other quick breads before moving on to simple fool-proof recipes and techniques for yeasted breads as well as foccaccia, pizza, pita, and bagels. You’ll learn to add more complexity to your breads by using time and pre-ferments such as biga, poolish, and—only if you want—sourdough that you grow from scratch. The book finishes with a foundational recipe that you will learn to adapt to make a wide variety of breads depending on your mood and what you have on hand.

From a simple pancake to a rustic whole wheat sourdough this book is more than just a journey through recipes and techniques. It’s a collection of stories and breads I’ve made for friends and family in various home kitchens over more than four decades.

You can get quite far with items you likely already have plus a few purchases. You absolutely need flour, yeast, salt, mixing bowls, a digital scale, a scraper, some pans, and an oven.

Errata, Typos, Suggestions

Releases:

• P1.0 2024/07/11

Chapter 1: Introduction excerpt

• What you need
• The Mystique of Sourdough
• Growing a Sourdough Starter
• Road Map
• Links and Resources
• Credits, Bio, and Version History
• Recipe Index
• Technique Index

Chapter 2: Quick Start

• Pancakes
• Using a Formula
• Sourdough Pancakes
• Crepes
• Muffins
• Irish Soda Bread and Scones
• Pan Breads
• Crackers
• Extras

Chapter 3: There’s no Knead excerpt

• Wet Focaccia
• Scaling
• Easy Bread
• Focaccia
• Steam
• No-Knead Bread
• Jeffrey’s Bread
• Mental Calculations

Chapter 4: Rises in the Yeast

• English Muffins from a Wet Dough
• Kneading
• Pizza
• Bagels
• Pita
• Hamburger Buns
• Cuban Bread
• Challah
• Tangzhong

Chapter 5: Time as an Ingredient

• Kneading and Folding
• Shaping and Slashing
• Working with Water
• French Bread
• Pâte Fermentée
• Sponge
• Biga
• Poolish
• Sourdough with Yeast
• Sourdough

Chapter 6: Up and Out excerpt

• Sourdough Rye Breads
• Whole Wheat Breads
• 1 2 3 4 Dough
• 1 2 3 4 Applied
• 1 2 3 4 Biga and Sponge
• 1 2 3 4 Hydration Levels
• Ciabatta
• Rustic Whole Grains
• Mixins
• So…

Daniel H Steinberg is the author of more than a dozen books including the best selling books A Functional Programming Kickstart, A Swift Kickstart, Second Edition and Dear Elena. He has written apps for the iPhone and the iPad since the SDKs first appeared and has written programs for the Mac all the way back to System 7.

Daniel presents iOS, Functional Programming, SwiftUI, and Swift training and consults through his company Dim Sum Thinking. When he’s not coding or talking about coding for the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad he’s probably cooking, baking bread, or hanging out with friends. Details on his training and speaking are on the Dim Sum Thinking website.