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Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers

Daniel Leader,

Lauren Chattman

4.18 · Rating details · 323 ratings · 25 reviews

When Daniel Leader opened his Catskills bakery, Bread Alone, twenty years ago, he was determined to duplicate the whole-grain and sourdough breads he had learned to make in the bakeries of Paris. The bakery was an instant success, and his first book, Bread Alone, brought Leader's breads to home kitchens. In this, his second book, Leader shares his experiences traveling thr ...more

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Hardcover, 368 pages

Published August 13th 2007 by W. W. Norton & Company

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· 323 ratings · 25 reviews

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Start your review of Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers

Dec 25, 2018 GoldGato rated it really liked it

Shelves: cooking-food-wine-cocktails, year-round, travel

A great breadmaker I will never be, but it is always fun to read a book which combines travel anecdotes with actual bread recipes. Perhaps it should become one of my holiday traditions, since I love to eat bread if not actually to love making it. Focusing mostly on France and Italy, Daniel Leader takes the reader on a journey that really opens the eyes for why certain breads do taste so much better.

I like the layout of the book. Each chapter presents a specific town/province and then discusses t ...more

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Jul 26, 2018 Donna rated it it was ok

There are much better bread books out there. This is the first book I bought when I started making sourdough. I loved Leader's stories behind each type of bread and his research. But after many, many trials, my starter and levains never worked well. And the loaves I made were very hit-or-miss. Some turned out ok, good flavor, but not enough rise, and some were complete duds. I then started noticing typos, missing info, etc... and googled reviews of Leader's book, and realized there are serious e ...more

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Sep 22, 2018 Katelyn Jenkins rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, cookbook

Eh, I liked it.
It is a fine cookbook, for sure, something about the design just disinterested me early on.
There are quick snippets of photos of the foods that lead to pages, in which, you need to go back and find the photo to the picture and ugh, it is kind of a mess.
If you are looking for a bread baking book, or looking for another, let me help you! The Larousse Book of Bread by Eric Kayser and The Hot Bread Kitchen by Waldman Rodriguez are fantasitic for the inquiring master baker ( I have re ...more

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Mar 15, 2015 James rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, cooking, diy, skimmed

Food porn at its finest, the recipes are above my level of ambition, but I still found a fair amount of useful information in here along with some fun reading. Required for people wanting to bake artisan breads, especially in locations not served by the likes of Acme Bakery, etc.

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Jul 02, 2012 Wouter rated it it was amazing

An exceptional book, and a very personal one. Leader talks about his trips to Europe and how he managed to aquire all recipes before he explains how to bake them. Every part (Italy, france, ...) has a nice backstory and the recipes are also expressed in metric units.
I like the storytelling the most, and the recipes I've tried so far have not failed eighter. Most recipes are fairly unique within the book. I wish there were more pictures present, they look amazing!

The only "downside" to the book ...more

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Apr 04, 2019 Clwseattle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2019

Wow. This book.

Local Breads is both intimidating and ... accessible. Dan Leader does a beautiful job of giving a bit of history mixed with wonderful detailed explanations and expected outcomes.

I would advise/caution that you read this book slowly and digest the information before moving on. There's a lot of information, none of it extraneous.

I have made the Parisian Daily Bread (Baguette normal) several times and it is wonderful. It's a good place to start on this delicious journey.

Of course, I ...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Ivory rated it really liked it

This is an excellent resource for home breadmakers. While I enjoyed Jeffrey Hamelman's "Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes" for developing a greater understanding of the science and techniques, "Local Breads" has easier descriptions for me to follow and offers better tips for inexperienced and moderately experienced breadmakers. I am looking forward to making many, mandy breads from this book! ...more

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Nov 21, 2011 Jessi rated it it was amazing

I have been toying with sourdough baking for a little while, and had good success with some recipes off the internet. This book, however, helped me move up to breads with impressively chewy crusts and fluffy tender insides, close to what you'd get from a nice boulangerie in France. The information about techniques and tricks to replicate professional bakery results in a home environment is first-rate. ...more

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Mar 29, 2010 Elaine Nelson rated it liked it

Shelves: cookbook, read-again

Recommended by Mathias, after the First Friday bread "contest" in March -- he brought pretzels. (I brought the only other bread: 3 different slow-knead loaves.) Made the pretzels yesterday. OMG good. Don't know if I'll make any other recipes while I have it out from the library; most seem to need quite a bit of attention and a baking stone, neither of which do I have right now. But I want to come back to it one of these days. ...more

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Mar 03, 2010 Jeannie Graves rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone who wants to try baking

I open this book multiple times every week, as I bake bread every other day. Great discussion of how bread is viewed, baked, bought, and treasured in many parts of Europe. I have 2 sourdough starters on my kitchen counter that I feed and water daily. I recommend using a metric scale and cupo for measuring ingredienmts, as the person who did the conversions to the American system screwed up big time. My scale is very inexpensive and dates from 30 years ago but still does the trick.

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Dec 30, 2007 Marie rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: foodies

Absolutely stunning recipes contained herein. Don't expect to be able to make them in a day (most require at least an overnight fermentation of the dough, if not more), but the results are amazing. I also loved reading all the stories of how he traveled around Europe learning from the artisan bakers and collecting their techniques and recipes. ...more

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Aug 22, 2009 Elizabeth rated it liked it

Shelves: cookbooks, bread-books

I got this book last year just after Christmas because of getting two copies of Beranbaum's Bread Bible. There are lovely photos and several recipes in the book that I keep meaning to bake and yet I STILL haven't tried any of them!

Hence the 3 star rating. Once I finally bake something, I suspect I'll be adding another star. ...more

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Oct 05, 2014 Julian rated it it was amazing

Want a book with great recipes, very clear instructions, a large and informative section at the beginning to explain the ABCs of bread baking and technology, and enough pictures to make your mouth constantly water? Then this is your book. It's been a fantastic resource for this novice. And you'll just want to hang out with Dan Leader and listen to him tell stories all night. ...more

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Feb 23, 2017 Hadyn rated it really liked it

I loved the content, the interesting locations Leader traveled to, and the creative recipes. However, the breads were generally hit-or-miss, and I've heard this is typical with his books, that they are published with many mistakes. I would buy this book but check online to see if others have posted corrections. ...more

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Dec 28, 2010 Sarah Rhodes added it

If I were going to buy another cookbook, I'd own this one. At the moment I've had it checked out from the library for about two months straight (oh the perils of being a librarian). I loved the clear explanations of types of pre-ferments. An excellent instruction for someone ready to play with sourdoughs, but it would have confused me if I'd picked it up without experience with bread.
...more

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Jun 25, 2010 Louise rated it really liked it

Lots of helpful techniques about bread baking that you can apply to things other than their recipes. Recipes are good for people just starting to bake bread too. I mostly used this to make my starter.

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Feb 19, 2008 Lisa rated it it was amazing

Another great bread book - only second to Maggie Glezer's book. ...more

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Jan 18, 2016 Ben Lund rated it it was ok

Too many errors and misleading information in how dough should look, smell, feel like, keep this book from being anything more than an anecdotal memoir of where the author made bread.

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May 13, 2008 Dean rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-i-just-read

This is an amazing and *smacks yourself on the forehead* work that really makes you re-think what you know about bread baking.

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Sep 29, 2009 Marjorie Elwood rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cookbook

Daniel Leader is a magician with bread. In addition to a wide variety of recipes, he also offers us troubleshooting tips for if your bread doesn't quite turn out the way you were hoping. ...more

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Mar 28, 2016 Kelly rated it really liked it

Shelves: gave-up

Looked like a great book; wasn't up for reading it just now. What I managed to read or skim was written well and the recipes look good. ...more

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Sep 11, 2012 S rated it liked it

Shelves: food-and-wine

Decent book but there are quite a few errors.

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Jan 04, 2021 Michelle rated it it was ok

Shelves: practical-non-fiction, food

I don't know that I've ever read a book with this many errors in it. They apparently hired an editor who thinks that bread flour is just flour you use to make bread, so a bunch of recipes list all-purpose flour in the ingredients but bread flour in the instructions. Then there are the inaccuracies that reflect Leader's knowledge gaps, such as his description of the magical type 85 flour as having 15% of the bran sifted out, which makes no sense if you know that whole-wheat flour is T150. Type in I don't know that I've ever read a book with this many errors in it. They apparently hired an editor who thinks that bread flour is just flour you use to make bread, so a bunch of recipes list all-purpose flour in the ingredients but bread flour in the instructions. Then there are the inaccuracies that reflect Leader's knowledge gaps, such as his description of the magical type 85 flour as having 15% of the bran sifted out, which makes no sense if you know that whole-wheat flour is T150. Type in French flours indicates ash content (what's left after burning), which is essentially mineral content. Higher ash means more flavor compounds so is similar to but not the same as extraction rate.

But worst of all are the errors in the recipes. Some are more irritating than anything, like the way he gets baker's percentages wrong all the time. He has you start building a liquid levain with 160g water and 50g flour, but he lists it as 60% hydration instead of 320%. In the old world baguette, he somehow gets 150g water to 300g flour wrong, as 55% water instead of 50%. In the whole spelt loaf, he talks in the intro specifically about using a rye sourdough starter instead of creating a spelt one and he lists this in the ingredients, but in the instructions he keeps referring to a spelt sourdough. He has you make a single loaf but then refers to proofing multiple loaves. In every recipe I had to reread and quadruple-check to see what I missed, but it was mostly annoying rather than harmful to the recipe.

Other times, though, the errors affect the outcome. The buckwheat batârd is the worst example. He lists the levain ingredients as 300g (1 1/2 cups) 130% hydration starter, 35g water, and 100g flour, but in the instructions he says to use only 1/4 cup starter (no gram equivalent listed). If you build the levain according to his proportions, you get an impossible low hydration of around 30%, made even drier by the thirsty buckwheat flour. Then the main recipe has you use only 125g of this either 460g or 210g starter (depending on whether you use the amount of starter in the ingredient list or in the instructions). Why? The whole point of making a levain separate from your starter is that you can make exactly the amount and ratio you want without altering the main starter. The Auvergne dark rye, too, has a hydration problem.

Another odd thing is that the photos are in the wrong sections. The section on Parisian breads has the photos for the Auvergne breads, while the section on the Auvergne has photos of the Italian breads, and so on. Flipping back to a previous section is pretty annoying, especially since the recipes don't say which page the photos are on.

After some confused and frustrated recipe reading, I found a whole Fresh Loaf forum dedicated to clearing up the myriad errors in this book. The corrected version of the buckwheat batârd was excellent, and I also enjoyed the miche. I'm glad to find more information on the differences between American and European breads, and how the wheat varietals and milling processes affect them. But the information is vague, and the writing leaves a lot to be desired. I picked up Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast around the same time, and it is much more engagingly written. Plus it isn't jam-packed with typos!

One thing I did like about the recipe layout is the time estimates under the title. Those were very helpful. In addition, the chapter beginnings have valuable information on regional bread styles. Leader's writing style is slightly off-putting, however, and I can't help but feel that he missed a chance to encourage the use of different flour types instead of adapting everything to all-purpose/bread/whole wheat with no other option, though probably 14 years ago the availability of flours to home bakers was more limited than today. With those reservations plus the egregious typos, I can't recommend this book as much more than a reference on regional styles.

Notes:
Stiff starters were used before refrigeration because they are less likely to go acidic at room temperature than liquid starters.
Bigas are very stiff and fermented for a long time because Italian flours were lower protein and needed time and support to develop gluten.
He says French T85 as having 15% of the bran sifted out but it's actually ash content.
He says Italian 00 flour comes in different protein levels but he fails to mention that it's a finer grind so more absorptive.
He says corn flour is made from whole kernels while cornmeal is the outer husk so you can't substitute finely ground cornmeal for corn flour, but this makes no sense. The germ and most of the husk are removed from refined cornmeal, but it still has the starchy endosperm.
German rye is made with acidic starter to keep amylase from from breaking down starches into sugars and becoming dense like the bread made with yeast. Instead, the starches gelatinize and trap gases. ...more

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Aug 21, 2020 Barbara M rated it really liked it

Shelves: reference, bread-baking, sourdough, food, cookbooks, bakeries, business

Very much a professional bakers kind of book. Some real in-depth instructions on the science of sourdough from many famous (I assume!) bakers in a variety of countries visited by the author.

Leader is quite well known as an expert and he offers expert advice. It can almost be overwhelming but also very informative. I have another book that is a much more simplified version that has become my beginners bible but I see myself coming back to this one at a later date as I get more experience. I have ...more

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