14 Best Bread Making Books

Forkish teaches artisan bread and pizza baking with recipes adapted to a home oven. Straight doughs, preferments, and naturally leavened breads introduce different schedules and techniques, with explanations of baker's percentages, dough ratios, equipment, and maintaining a levain starter.

Robertson teaches the bread-making methods developed at San Francisco's Tartine Bakery through detailed instructions and step-by-step photographs. Variations on a master recipe introduce different loaves, while sweet and savory dishes show how to use bread after its first day.

Reinhart teaches twelve stages of bread making through clear instructions, photographs, and master formulas. Classic breads, bagels, and pizza dough connect practical technique with baking science and history, while this revised edition updates methods and adds measurement and temperature conversions.

Whitley examines modern commercial bread and explains his approach to making bread at home. Drawing on experience as an organic baker, he combines criticism of industrial methods with practical recipes and techniques that reconnect readers with the craft of baking.

Rose Levy Beranbaum combines bread recipes with explanations of ingredients, equipment, and baking chemistry. Yeast breads, quick breads, flatbreads, and brioche accompany weight and volume measurements, with notes clarifying the techniques behind fermentation, texture, and successful preparation.

Dan Lepard combines bread recipes with photographs and encounters from his travels around Europe. Home and professional baking traditions inform his approach to fermentation, ingredients, and working dough by hand, giving readers a varied collection to explore.

Hamelman explains bread-making techniques through detailed recipes, drawings, and photographs for professionals and experienced home bakers. This edition covers a wide range of breads, including sourdough, rye, brioche, flatbreads, and French loaves, with step-by-step guidance throughout.

Buehler connects the chemistry of bread with the practical steps of making it. Fermentation, yeast behavior, gluten, and gas retention accompany guidance on preferments, sourdough starters, mixing, folding, shaping, and baking, supported by photographs and illustrations.

James Morton introduces bread making through explanations of ingredients, dough preparation, shaping, and baking. The book combines practical guidance with recipes intended to help home bakers understand the process and develop confidence beyond following instructions.

Bertinet builds a range of bread recipes from five basic doughs: white, olive, brown, rye, and sweet. His practical approach shows how these foundations become breads such as fougasse and ciabatta, as well as flavored loaves and doughnuts.

Reinhart develops whole-grain baking through fifty-five recipes and a detailed introduction to delayed fermentation. Step-by-step photographs and baking science support sandwich and hearth breads, specialty loaves, bagels, and crackers made with wheat and a range of other grains.

Maurizio Leo explains the fundamentals of sourdough, from managing a starter to fermentation and baking. Detailed techniques and recipes cover loaves, pizza, and sweet baking, helping readers apply naturally leavened methods across different kinds of dough.

Reinhart explores baking with sprouted flours, whole and ancient grains, and alternative ingredients. Fifty recipes and formulas introduce new methods alongside guidance on soakers, preferments, and sourdough starters, including allergy-friendly and gluten-free approaches.

Hertzberg and François adapt their stored-dough method to gluten-free bread, mixing batches ahead for later baking. Ninety recipes and guidance on flour blends show how to make varied breads without wheat, barley, or rye, with limited active preparation for basic loaves.