This week: Bread recipes, how to cultivate your own yeast, sourdough starter and more

Certainly, we can all agree that the past weeks have been taxing. Fear of what the future holds and social distancing is a difficult pill to swallow in 2020. I posted recently on social media that this will be the time when everyone learns to bake bread. Twenty or thirty of my friends shared photos of their bread-related baking on my thread.

Many people were looking for sandwich bread recipes (online recipes). The photo above is from Brown Eyed Baker for her favorite white bread recipe which is one of my favorite recipes. Those new to baking were on the hunt for yeast as supermarkets and online vendors were sold out. After doing some research on creating your own yeast, I found the following video very helpful. I am going to start my own jar this week.

New bakers were looking to begin their own Sourdough starter and experienced bakers were baking up Sourdough English muffins and other recipes using their discard. What is discard and why should one throw away a good portion of the starter that they so lovingly feed and nurtured? Unless some starter is discarded, the starter requires so much flour for feedings that it becomes unmanageable. Cultures for Health has a great post on hydration levels and using your sourdough discard.

A few of our favorite bread baking cookbooks:

• The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart
• Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François
• Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson
• The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum
• The Bread Collection (The Bake Feed Series): Recipes for Baking Artisan Bread at Home by Brian Hart Hoffman

London bakery Bread Ahead is hosting live baking tutorials on Instagram and King Arthur has some great videos on all types of baking.

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This Week on our Blog

Since our last roundup, Darcie has written articles on the following topics: food related websites offer free access, news that chef Michel Roux has died at age 79, the best spring cookbooks according to Epicurious, taking on complicated projects now, and how to support local businesses (including cookbook stores). Darcie’s weekly food news antipasto is shared every Sunday (#foodnews brings up these information-packed posts).

This week I shared my Best Cookbooks of Spring 2020 and continue to update my 2020 preview post with new titles and links to author events (always double-check as many of these events have been postponed or canceled). Our latest Quick Bites features Melissa Clark, be sure to check it out!

Recently Indexed Books

• Bake from Scratch, Volume 4: Artisan Recipes for the Home Baker 
• Beatrix Bakes by Natalie Paull 
• The Baja California Cookbook by David Castro Hussong and Jay Porter
• One Pot Feeds All: 100 Deliciously Simple One-Dish Recipes by Darina Allen (be sure to enter our giveaway that features Anolon cookware)
• Open Kitchen: Inspired Food for Casual Gatherings by Susan Spungen
• Dinner in French: My Recipes by Way of France by Melissa Clark (promotion in the works to include a Le Creuset Dutch oven)

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Member Photo of the Week

Spanish rice with chorizo, beans & pumpkin from Simple: Effortless Food, Big Flavours by Diana Henry submitted by member grindabod

Have you uploaded any of your own photos yet? Learn more!

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Featured Online Recipe

Orange cream pie from The Kitchn by Erin Jeanne McDowell

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EYBDigital Previews

Recently we uploaded our 638th EYBDigital Preview where a selection of full sample pages is available for the following cookbooks.

Learn more about EYBDigital Previews.

Note: To learn why you cannot add all EYBDigital Preview recipes to your Bookshelf, please read this Help page.

• 3 recipes from Texas Q: 100 Recipes for the Very Best Barbecue from the Lone Star State, All Smoke-Cooked to Perfection by Cheryl Jamison (pub date 4/28/2020)
• 3 recipes from Bitter Honey: Recipes from the Island of Sardinia by Letitia Clark (pub date 4/28/2020)
• 2 recipes and the introduction from A Year of Simple Family Food: Delicious Recipes to Feed Your Family Through the Seasons by Julia Busuttil Nishimura (pub date 4/28/2020)
• 3 recipes from Fire, Smoke, Green: Vegetarian Barbecue, Smoking and Grilling Recipes by Martin Nordin (pub date 4/1/2020)

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Cookbook Giveaways
Click on the Blue Link Below to Enter

• Enter our US giveaway to win one of three copies of See You on Sunday: A Cookbook for Family and Friends by Sam Sifton with one grand prize winner receiving a Smithey cast iron pot. Expires April 15th, 2020.
• Enter our giveaway (US/UK/AU/NZ) to win a copy of Super Sourdough: The Foolproof Guide to Making World-Class Bread at Home by James Morton. Expires April 16th, 2020.

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Be sure to enter all our current giveaways!

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