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The Perfect Loaf 🍞

Maurizio Leo

Want to make bakery-quality sourdough bread from home? Subscribe for the best sourdough guides and recipes to take your bread from ordinary to incredible.

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🍞 Sourdough during Passover? And cinnamon rolls, focaccia, and more!

Sourdough during Passover? And cinnamon rolls, focaccia, and more! We didn't grow up celebrating Passover, but for several of my childhood friends, it was a shift from the usual sandwiches and treats to a different set of foods and activities. While I may not have fully grasped the intricacies of Passover, I could always appreciate the pivotal role that food played in my friends' religious observance. It made me realize that food is a universal thread that weaves through our lives, connecting...

6 days ago • 2 min read

Experiments (and a recipe!) with freshly milled flour For the past few weeks, I've had my grain mill on in the kitchen, testing with various grains: Khorasan, hard red wheat (Yecora Rojo), and white wheat. Each grain has its unique charm, and milling them fresh brings out a wide range of flavors and an incredible aroma that genuinely elevates the final loaf. What I also love about freshly milling my flour, though, is the fact that it can be incredibly economical to do so. I buy raw wheat...

13 days ago • 3 min read

Good dough + good dough = better dough This week we have an interesting thought experiment: what if you had two bread recipes you loved and wanted to make a new recipe using these two as a base? Sort of like a fifty-fifty recipe that takes the great things about these two recipes and mashes them into a new recipe that's sure to please. The premise is this: "Once you have reliable single-flour formulas, you can calculate the ideal hydration of a novel formula by combining them on paper instead...

20 days ago • 2 min read

New tart lemon loaf, holiday dinner rolls + baguettes As a baker who uses long fermentation and dough-strengthening techniques to create crusty yet airy bread, I'm in awe of cakes and breads that demand gentle handling, relying on the ingredients to produce a super soft result. This loaf is precisely that: incredibly tender with a golden hue and studded with poppyseed. It's a lovely lemon-y loaf that delivers the perfectly tart punch. But what's more, this loaf uses a hefty bit of sourdough...

27 days ago • 3 min read

How I save sourdough starter discard for weeks There's nothing I hate more than throwing out unused sourdough starter. While I don't really see it as "waste" because it was used for something—keeping your starter alive! But still, that flavorful and aromatic discard can be used in so many good things if only I had the time each day. But what if there was a way to keep starter discard fresh and usable without the pressure to use it daily? Well, the answer as it turns out, is simple: We can...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read

The secrets to tangzhong and (amazing) bread This email is a love letter to tangzhong, an Asian technique for bringing incredibly softness and shelf life to any bread. I've been using the tangzhong technique in my bread recipe for years. Once I discovered it, it's been my go-to method for imparting serious softness into my bread—and it's such a simple technique. In my refreshed tangzhong guide, I talk about correctly making the tangzhong mixture, the ideal flour-to-liquid ratios, storing it...

about 2 months ago • 3 min read

New sourdough scones, trusty baguettes, and more! This week I could feel the warm weather waiting to break in. Sadly, it dipped back into being cold again, but that's just fine because it was perfect timing for this week's sourdough starter discard scone recipe testing. And you're really gonna love these. But I also had a bit of time to practice my baguette technique (there's never enough practice), make some focaccia, and even a pan pizza. I've also been playing with a few different...

about 2 months ago • 3 min read

Rye deep-dive, new guide to sourdough, and shaping pizza This week, I've got more delicious rye reading for you, a wonderful entry point into baking sourdough bread, and a guide to help up your pizza game. Also, don't forget if you'll be in the Tucson area on March 10th, I'll be giving a baking demo, book signing, and meet up at the Tucson Festival of Books! I'd love to see you there. Okay, let's talk about rye. In this week's newsletter: Essay: The Whys of Rye Guide: Beginner's Guide to...

2 months ago • 2 min read

New freeform rye recipe I'm a massive fan of rye, even in a small percentage of the total flour—it brings loads of flavor and a beautiful crust color. But today, we're talking about proper German-style bread with 90% whole-grain rye. Slices of this bread are like wandering through a dense, dark forest at midnight. Each bite is a discovery and irresistible in its complexity. Many are intimidated by recipes with lots of rye flour. And I get why, it may be new to some, but with a few loose rules...

2 months ago • 2 min read

The best sourdough sweets for Valentine's I mean, what better way to say you care for someone (or yourself!) than crafting something by hand—right? And not just something, but a bread, knot, roll, or cookie that isn't the same-old from the store or off a shelf. It started as flour and a bubbly sourdough starter and became a magical treat you cannot buy. My round-up of sweet concoctions below will have one that will hit the spot this holiday. Loaf is in the air, after all. (Sorry.) In this...

3 months ago • 2 min read
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