Bread has managed to find its way into most of the things I make. It turns up in project names, software, recipes and probably more conversations than it reasonably should. It was only a matter of time before it became a book.
The Toasty Book of Bread: An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Greatest Loaves is available on Kindle, in paperback and in hardback.
That feels quite strange to write after spending so long with it as a collection of files, recipes and things to fix. It is a real book now, and I’m very happy to be able to share it.
Why bread needed a whole book
The part of bread that keeps bringing me back is its range. Change the grain, the available heat or the meal it needs to accompany, and you can end up with something completely different. Sometimes that happens across a very short distance. Sometimes kitchens far apart arrive at something that looks surprisingly familiar.
Focaccia is a lovely example of the first. A Genoese tray gives you risen bread with oil in its dimples. Nearby Recco gives you thin sheets around soft cheese. They share a name and a place in the same wider region, but the work and the mouthful are very different.
Then there are pita and arepas. Both can become pockets for lunch, though the pocket gets there in a different way. That is the sort of connection I wanted to explore. Something familiar enough to catch your attention, followed by the details that make each bread its own thing.
The stories also go beyond what tastes good. They involve what could be grown, what could be kept, what fuel and equipment were available, and what bread meant to the people making and eating it. All of that belongs beside the recipe.
It should make you want to bake
I wanted the book to be something you could read for the histories and then take into the kitchen. There are 48 principal bread entries and 51 recipes, travelling through Europe, West Asia and the Caucasus, Africa, the rest of Asia, the Americas and Caribbean, and Oceania.
I’ve baked the recipes myself, shared them with friends and tried them as part of different meals. That last part matters to me. A loaf can be very good on its own, but it becomes something else when you find the breakfast, soup, filling or shared meal it fits into.
There is practical guidance too, covering materials, fermentation and heat. A steamed bun, a rye paste and a pan bread ask different things of the baker. I wanted the useful help to be there when someone needed it, without every bread being forced into the same method.
The illustrations are warm, colourful and full of bread character. Orange and cream were always going to win that argument.
A smaller guide for the bench
Alongside the book, I’ve made The Toasty Book of Bread: TL;DR. It has eight recipes, a few useful cues and some quick fixes for the days when the dough has different plans.
It is a small thing of its own, with a compact layout and the same cheerful illustrations. You can start with something quick for the pan or settle into a slower bake. The idea is to make choosing the next bread a little easier.
Download the TL;DR from the book page.
The Connections essays
The Connections: neighbouring differences, distant likenesses excerpt is also published on Zenodo. It contains six illustrated essays and their cited references, following neighbours, sheets, rings, cultures, keeping bread and making meals.
I wanted this part to have a stable place where it could be found and cited. It has the DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23300441, which links to the published excerpt.
Next stop: the Baker’s Archive
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be adding recipes from the book to the Baker’s Archive, a few at a time. They will have their ingredients, methods, notes and source details, so you can use them as proper recipe entries.
I’ll start with a mix of methods and ingredients rather than work through one region from beginning to end. A tray of focaccia, some coconut roti, steamed mantou and pocket arepas should make a good first set. The rest can follow at a pace that gives each entry the attention it needs.
The book is part of the Toasty Panetteria book series, and I’m glad it has reached this point. There are still more breads to explore, but for now I’d quite like to put the kettle on, cut a slice and enjoy this one.