It’s book review Sunday, we’re back into bread with Bryan Ford @artisanbryan’s #NewWorldSourdough & handsome pictures by Stephanie Lynn Warga @tinyhousephoto, published by @quartocooks. I made Bryan’s #sourdoughcinnamonraisinbagel (Bryan calls’em #cinnyraisinbagels, pp108-111), blown away by the sourdough twang, a HUGE step up from the cis yeast kind, especially when underpinning a cinnamon + honey + raisin mix (often mawkish). In the #bagelboil I used half honey, half @muntonsmalt. Good honey’s pricey, great malt is fantastic value: get it at @bakerybitsltd.
Likes: Happy to make every recipe in @artisanbryan’s #NewWorldSourdough & serve to friends straight-off. Very helpful how-to section at the start to show how to make and manage your sourdough baking. Inspired that the places he’s lived, worked, connected to have played on the flavours, like the muffaletta rolls with an olive salad mix in (p135), birote with beer & lime juice (p60), the plaintain quinoa sourdough (p67). Gorgeous ideas you’d love to see as sandwich breads for your deli-at-home, or even cafe. Photos are light & fun, helpful step-by-steps, Bryan looking enviably at ease & enjoying life with his soulmate Alycia & their dog.
Could be better: I got the sense the book’s production was lean, a few more hands at work could’ve helped. Edit doesn’t always make sense, though the recipe “direction” is straightforward so you can re-order sentences in your head (p110, boil, step 5, sentence 3 could move). Some queries (p109, cinnamon, I used less than half the 40g). The running text – a delicate serif font, in multiple weights/styles, in % grey not solid black – does make recipe pages rather unreadable/headache’y for older fuzzy eyes like mine. Running the ingredients in a tiny font size, compared to the body text, not a great idea. Hoping there’s another book from Bryan planned as I’d love to see even more inventiveness, even if it borders on weird.
Overall: Absolutely buy it, show #NewWorldSourdough proudly in your bakery bookshelf, feel confident it’s a great book to give to an aspiring artisan baker whose talents have emerged during this lockdown.
