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A Whole Grain Sourdough Book for The Rest of Us: Sourdough Without Fail
Creating a sourdough book for the rest of us: A 100% whole grain & fresh milled flour sourdough cookbook with easy recipes and a practical design
Baking great sourdough doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Whether you’re using fresh milled flour or store-bought whole grain flour, you can make delicious bread, pizza, pastries, and more in your own kitchen.
Sourdough Without Fail is a practical fresh milled flour sourdough cookbook written for real home bakers and homesteaders who want methods that work in real life conditions.
“I love how much this book leans into explaining things. Not in a dry textbook way, but like someone patiently translating cryptic sourdough nonsense into actual human language.”
Sadie E
“This book is absolutely wholesome. Many recipes and instructions out there assume you already know half of the steps. This book does no such thing. It is the most thorough, in-depth guide to sourdough bread I’ve read so far.”
Rosaline, Rosaline’s Rolls and Scrolls
“This is not only a recipe book, but a step-by-step guide… It goes into extreme detail, almost as someone is here with you making the sourdough recipes. This book has made me more confident in my ability to make sourdough products.”
Sarah
What’s included
- 75+ adaptable recipes
- Works with fresh milled flour & store-bought whole grain flours
- Wheat, ancient grains, and gluten-free options
- Multiple options for different batch sizes and schedules
- Beginner-friendly and useful for experienced bakers looking for a natural approach to sourdough
- Bread, pizza, pastries, and discard recipes
- Understand the “why” as well as the “how” of sourdough
- Practical techniques from an experienced baker
A look inside the book
Whole grain sourdough bread recipes you can rely on every day
From rustic dutch oven boules to sandwich breads, rye breads, ancient grains, basic bread doughs, sprouted grains, and more, including recipes for total beginners, Sourdough Without Fail provides you with so much variety, from the everyday to the extraordinary.
Not just bread
Easy everyday whole grain sourdough discard recipes
Sourdough is so much more than bread. Sourdough discard is a resource that I actually make on purpose, so that I can make the chocolate cake, apple pie, soda bread, pancakes, cookies, pie crust, and other discard recipes that I share in the book.
Recipes that work with fresh milled flour
Recipes have been fully tested with a variety of freshly milled flours and pre-milled flours: Wheat, rye, einkorn, emmer, khorasan and spelt. You can make any recipe from this book with home milled flour or with store bought flour.
Sourdough pizza
With sourdough you can make great pizza from wheat, spelt, einkorn, emmer, Khorasan, or gluten-free flours, and I will show you how.
Burger buns, baguettes, rolls, and more
After years of making terrible burger buns, I’ve created two excellent roll recipes that will work for burgers, sandwiches, and more.
In Sourdough Without Fail you’ll also the perfect fresh milled flour baguette recipe with step-by-step photos of how to shape them perfectly every time.
Healthy and delicious whole grain sourdough pastries
Taking my fuss-free, busy homesteader’s approach to baking one step further, I’ve developed a recipe for Danish pastry that is more adaptable and down-to-earth than other Danish pastry recipes.
I also share the most delicious doughnut recipe, and several recipes for different sweet buns, fruit breads, and more. All of these are 100% sourdough leavened, with 100% real food ingredients.
Gluten free options
I’ve created a chapter of gluten-free breads from 100% natural whole food ingredients, with something for everyone, and also tested gluten-free versions of the sourdough discard recipes, so that you can make gluten-free pancakes, cookies, cakes, pies, and more.
Want to see the full list of recipes? You can download the recipe list and first chapter for free here.
Who is this book for?
- Sourdough beginners who feel overwhelmed
- Anyone who wants a wide variety of healthy sourdough recipes
- People using fresh milled flour and other 100% whole grain flours
- Busy homemakers and homesteaders who want a more flexible, life-friendly approach to baking
- Anyone tired of finicky, rigid sourdough instructions
What people are saying
“Sourdough Without Fail is like your security blanket companion while you begin to understand the art of leavening bread and using whole grains… turning the most hesitant beginner into a confident sourdough baker.”
— Marc Vetri, author of Mastering Bread
“A work of art. Great pictures and detailed recipes, amazing. Such a great resource of inspiration.”
— Hendrik Kleinwaechter, author of The Sourdough Framework
“I love how much this book leans into explaining things. Not in a dry textbook way, but like someone patiently translating cryptic sourdough nonsense into actual human language.”
— Sadie E
“This book is absolutely wholesome. I have been trying to make my own sourdough starter for a while now, but I’m an absolute beginner and many recipes and instructions out there assume you already know half of the steps. This book does no such thing. It is the most thorough, in-depth guide to sourdough bread I’ve read so far.”
— Rosaline, Rosaline’s Rolls and Scrolls
“This book feels like an absolute labour of love. There is so much attention to detail and you really feel that your hand has been held throughout the process… The recipes are straightforward to read but detailed enough that you don’t have to look for any information anywhere else.”
— Caroline
“Kate Downham writes from a very real place… There’s no empty theory here, just accumulated experience and a genuine desire to share it. Highly recommended, whether you’re a beginner or think you know it all.”
— Vania L. Casas
“This was not only a recipe book, but a step-by-step guide… It goes into extreme detail, almost as someone is here with you making the sourdough recipes. This book has made me more confident in my ability to make sourdough products.”
— Sarah
Read more early reviews on Goodreads
Sourdough without fail!
If you’ve tried sourdough in the past (or if you’ve wanted to) and it hasn’t worked out, don’t despair. This book will help you to make your own sourdough bread, pizza, pastries, and more. Some of the best feedback I’ve had has been from recipe testers, including the quote from Gina that I’ll post below. If your past sourdough experiences have been like Gina’s, I hope you will also look forward to baking the recipes in my new book.
Why I wrote this book
In some ways I’m grateful for the haphazard way I started with sourdough. I had previously been baking with yeast and had never found any recipes that really suited me, so I’d figured out my own. Switching over to sourdough, I took the same approach. I made some terrible loaves to begin with, but eventually figured out how to tinker with the starter amount, hydration, timing, temperature, and technique to produce breads with better flavour and texture.
If instead I’d followed finicky instructions from the internet or a book, maybe I would have been put off the whole idea.
I think a lot of books are written from a specialist perspective: someone that has focused on just one thing, written about it in isolation, without providing any guidance for those who do not have the same perfect conditions. I like to think of my book as being written by a generalist: Yes, I am making all my family’s bread, it’s an important part of how we eat and I love it, but I am also making cheese, fermenting, canning, preserving, gardening, caring for family and animals, building infrastructure, and all the other tasks that make for a diverse homestead.
Sourdough does not have to be difficult. You do not need to follow someone else’s schedule. By learning to understand why different techniques are done, you can decide for yourself whether it is really worthwhile to make a levain, autolyse, knead, stretch and fold, preshape, score, or any other aspect of sourdough.
By learning to really understand fermentation, and how the balancing act of timing, temperature, and prefermented flour percentage works, you can confidently adjust recipes to suit your lifestyle and your seasonal conditions.
Sourdough Without Fail has over 75 easy and adaptable sourdough recipes, along with detailed information to help the home baker really understand sourdough and learn how to tinker with recipes to get different results.
Ready to bake sourdough without stress?
- Bake healthy homemade bread in a way that works for your life
- Make everything sourdough: pies, pizzas, pastries, buns, rolls, cakes and more
- Understand sourdough without feeling overwhelmed
- Bake great sourdough all the time, not just when conditions are perfect
Ready to bake great sourdough all the time?
Want to learn more first? You can download the first chapter for free here, and see some of my sourdough recipes on the blog here.
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About Kate Downham
Kate Downham has been growing, preserving, and cooking real food since 2007. She is the author of four books on homestead skills: A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen, Natural Small Batch Cheesemaking, Backyard Dairy Goats, and Sourdough Without Fail.
Off-grid with her family of nine in the Tasmanian forest, Kate milks her own goats, makes all their cheese, mills all her own grain, and bakes fresh sourdough bread daily.
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