The Baker's Percentage: The Simple Formula for Making Perfect Sourdough Bread at Home

No recipes, just an amazing formula that will revolutionize the way you bake sourdough bread.

“The Baker’s Percentage” is a formula developed by bread bakers to allow them to create any bread, from a pure white sourdough to a 100 percent whole wheat loaf. With it, bakers can scale up or down, from one loaf to a dozen, and can choose to speed up or slow down fermentation according to their daily commitments. It is completely liberating, yet most home bakers have never heard of it. Unlike making a cake, sourdough bread recipes do not require a strict list of ingredients with precise measurements; it is a process that can be “felt.” It is malleable.

The Baker’s Percentage is unlike any other cookbook. There are no recipes. Instead, it encourages the reader to bake bread with autonomy and confidence, according to their own needs and schedule. With chapters on Flour, Starters and Leaven, Mixing and Kneading, Bulk Fermentation, Dividing, Shaping and Proofing, Baking, and more, this is a thoroughly comprehensive guide to baking bread, in whatever way suits you.

The book intertwines this bread-baking know-how with stories from the author, Mara Rapini, and her cooking school Village Dreaming & Farm ORTO.

Mara Ripani is an Italian Australian bread-baking expert and photographer who runs master classes on how to bake wild yeast sourdough bread from her farm in Victoria, Australia. At her fifteen-acre farm near Daylesford, Mara has built multiple kitchens, a large vegetable garden, and various orchards in order to share and educate people about the importance of slowing down, growing food, and living with nature.