Sourdough
By Sarah Owens
Photographs by Ngoc Minh Ngo
Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Sourdough offers 101 luscious recipes using natural, made-from-scratch sourdough starter for more nutritious, tastier results—going well beyond bread into a wide range of other baked goods.
In Sarah Owens’s pioneering Sourdough, she demystified using sourdough starter for maximum flavor and easy digestion, showing us just how simple it can be to create a healthy starter from scratch. Moreover, she showed how to use home-grown sourdough starter in dozens of baked goods, including cookies, cakes, scones, flatbreads, tarts, and more—well beyond bread. Ten years later, sourdough is more popular than ever. To celebrate, this refreshed anniversary edition includes an updated introduction and expanded resources section.
Sarah Owens spent years baking conventional baked goods, only to realize she had developed a crippling inability to digest or tolerate their ingredients. Unable to enjoy many of her favorite foods, she knew she must find a health-sustaining alternative. Sarah started experimenting with sourdough leavening, which almost immediately began to heal her gut and inspire her anew in the kitchen. Soon after, she launched an artisan small-batch bakery, and with that, a new way to savor and share nutritious sourdough breads and treats with her Brooklyn community. A botanist and gardener as well as a baker, Sarah accents her recipes with brief natural history notes on the highlighted plants and ingredients. Laced with botanical and cultural notes on grains, fruits and vegetables, herbs, and even weeds, Sourdough celebrates seasonal abundance alongside the timeless craft of artisan baking.
"Sarah Owens is a legend in the sourdough community, and we all owe her a deep debt of gratitude for bringing this gorgeous book into our world. She demystifies sourdough in a way that makes everything seem easy and natural. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a sourdough newbie, you’ll relish following the rhythms of the seasons with her as your guide. Trust her, she’ll take your bakes to beautiful new places." —Josey Baker, founder of The Mill in San Francisco and author of Josey Baker Bread: Get Baking, Make Great Bread, Be Happy!
"Artist, gardener, and baker, Sarah writes beautifully—and with clarity—about the recipes and the craft of bread making, as she practices it. Sourdough is a gorgeous and inspiring book of uniquely delicious recipes for a new or seasoned baker. It is a call to bake by hand and with the senses, to consider the source and diversity of ingredients, and to think like an artist and a scientist in the kitchen. I’m delighted to see this new edition." —Alice Medrich, author of Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies and Gluten-Free Flavor Flours
"Sarah Owens’s tenth anniversary edition of her award-winning classic, Sourdough, is welcome news for the baking community. The growing hunger for delicious, beautiful, and reliable sourdough recipes is well-met in this updated edition. Sarah’s meticulous attention to detail and her discriminating palate for pure flavors will please everyone. Let her evoke and cultivate the baker within you with the same nurturing she brought to her legendary roses at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and her microbakery in Brooklyn. With this book, you will find yourself in very good hands and with a whole new repertoire of creative recipes using the full potential of the garden and mother earth." —Peter Reinhart, author of The Bread Baker's Apprentice and host of the Pizza Quest podcast
"I am thrilled that Sarah Owens book Sourdough is being revised for its tenth anniversary. Sarah’s approach to baking is far broader than just the “how to” make delicious bread at home. Her connection to the land, ingredients, environment, and the heart that she weaves throughout her work connects the reader to new ways to appreciate the joy of baking. Lucky for us, her recipes are as diverse as they are delicious." —Daniel Leader, founder of Bread Alone Bakery and author of A Slow Rise: Favorite Recipes from Four Decades of Baking with Heart
"Sarah Owen’s award-winning book, Sourdough, is as fresh, beautiful, and compelling as the day it was released. From basic tools and methods to inspired grain and flavor combinations—with sourdough at every turn—her book presents like a bouquet to the baker. Whether you’re new to fermentation and growing your skills or an experienced baker looking to spark creativity, this timeless collection is the perfect tool." —Martin Philip, baker and author of Baking Bread: A Baker’s Journey Home in 75 Recipes
"Sarah Owens’s Sourdough, with its approachable recipes, gentle guidance, and stunning photography, remains a seminal work ten years on. Launching an interest in home bread making, sourdough, and fermentation has led to more passion and knowledge nationwide. This is an essential book if you are interested in slow food practices and a delicious life." —Rose Wilde, founder of Red Bread and author Bread and Roses: 100+ Grain Forward Recipes featuring Global Ingredients and Botanicals
"Sourdough is in a timeless class that was ahead of its time in terms of making breads from a more unusual palette of grains, flours, and foraged ingredients. Sarah goes beyond your typical European hearth breads and writes recipes that draw on world flavors and traditional wisdom and are full of imagination and heart. Despite the title, this book goes way beyond just sourdough and draws the home baker deeper into the world of fermentation and its limitless possibilities." —Emma Zimmerman, cofounder of Hayden Flour Mills and author of The Miller’s Daughter: Unusual Flours and Heritage Grains: Stories and Recipes from Hayden Flour Mills
"If you’ve been mystified by sourdough, allow Sarah Owens to be your guide. She incorporates it into everything—from cookies and biscuits to cakes and, of course, glorious breads. You will want to eat every recipe in this stunningly photographed book." —Maria Speck, award-winning author of Simply Ancient Grains and Ancient Grains for Modern Meals
"Sourdough highlights the joy of working in season and the power of microbes in one of our most loved foods: bread. Sarah’s tasty creations and intimate interactions with the natural world inspire us to trust the life forces that contribute to the health of our inner and outer ecosystems—leading to a more thoughtful experience with food." —Tara Whitsitt, founder of Fermentation on Wheels and author of Fermentation on Wheels: Road Stories, Food Ramblings, and 50 Do-It-Yourself Recipes from Sauerkraut, Kombucha, and Yogurt to Miso, Tempeh, and Mead