Artisan baker, food writer and author Dan Lepard is one of the world’s most widely-read and respected bakers, the easy-going judge on Nine Network’s The Great Australian Bake Off, and columnist at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Melbourne
Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1964 he moved to London in his late teens and, after a period as a fashion photographer in the 1980s, began training as a pastry chef with some of London’s top Michelin-starred kitchens. From the beginning, Dan saw the potential to revive and retain good baking in Britain and applied himself to learning the skills needed to do that. He encouraged his mentor chefs, like Fergus Henderson and Giorgio Locatelli, to develop micro-bakeries within their kitchens where quality could be paramount and free of the pressures commercial bakeries faced. And from this start began to stir home bakers round the world into tackling sourdough with ease.
Dan Lepard’s books, which combine easy-going style with an in-depth understanding of the science of baking, have established him as the alternative baking guru for a generation of young cooks and chefs. His first book, Baking With Passion (1999), was also the first book to champion an artisan bakery in Britain and went on to win the Guild of Food Writers’ Cook Book of the Year Award and was short-listed for the André Simon Food Book of the Year. His next book, The Handmade Loaf (2004) combined his writing with his skills as a photographer and gained a cult following as it encouraged long-process dough making at a time when bakeries were still speeding their production. He followed this with the baking chapter of The Cook’s Book (2005) which won the James Beard Foundation Book Award in the USA and has sold over 400,000 copies. On the side he photographed Giorgio Locatelli’s masterwork Made In Italy (2005), winner of the Glenfiddich and World Gourmand awards; wrote the British chapter in the Dictionnaire Universel Du Pain (Laffont Paris, 2010); photographed Hawksmoor At Home (2011); and co-authored and photographed Comptoir Libanais (2013) and Comptoir Express (2014).
His latest book, Short & Sweet (4th Estate) has been a best-seller since its launch in 2011, and won the UK’s prestigious Andre Simon Award, Cook Book of the Year, 2011. He lives in London with his partner David.