We independently evaluate all of our recommendations. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. What to Buy Gift Guides Cookbooks The 13 Best Bread Cookbooks, Including a Few of Our Editor Favorites Learn how to make fresh loaves at home from the world's top bakers. By Rachel Weingarten Rachel Weingarten Rachel Weingarten is a former artisan bakery owner and food and lifestyle writer and author of several nonfiction books. Rachel loves testing out kitchen gadgets and other household tools to find the absolute best products to share with her readers. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines and Jason Horn Jason Horn With a culinary degree, a master's in journalism, and nearly 20 years of experience, Jason Horn has spent his entire career writing about food and drinks. He lives in Los Angeles, where he grills and entertains outdoors as much as possible. He also loves the winter sport of curling. Food & Wine's Editorial Guidelines Updated on August 15, 2024 In This Article View All In This Article Reviews Our Expertise Photo: Food & Wine / Kevin Liang Baking bread is a ritual for many home cooks. For some, kneading by hand almost becomes a meditative practice; for others, it's a sticky mess that takes years to figure out. Regardless of your skill level, thousands of bread cookbooks are out there to teach new recipes and techniques. “What makes home-baked bread priceless is the time, energy, and love you put into it,” says Uliks Fehmiu, co-founder of Pain D’Avignon, a beloved Cape Cod bakery. “You can never compare the hot, steamy, crunchy bread that just came out of the oven to the loaf baked a day earlier. There is nothing like breaking a fresh loaf of bread with your own hands.” Whether you want to make sourdough for the first time or are ready to move on to buttery brioche, we’ve rounded up some of the best bread cookbooks for any home baker. The Perfect Loaf PHOTO: Amazon $40 $36 at Amazon $24 at Target $24 at Walmart After a decade of sharing his breadmaking expertise on his award-winning The Perfect Loaf website, Maurizio Leo has compiled his most valuable insights into this debut cookbook, which won a James Beard Award and an IACP Cookbook Award. After you flip through its pages of meticulously detailed techniques, recipes, and expert teaching, you'll see why. If you've spent countless hours trying to perfect the subtle art and exact science of baking bread, Leo's groundbreaking guide will quickly become a staple in your kitchen. Bread Baking for Beginners PHOTO: Amazon $18 $10 at Amazon The title pretty much says it all with this book, which teaches you all the essentials for basic loaves, the no-knead method, and buttery sweets and biscuits. It explains the tools you need and the science behind why you need them, with lots of troubleshooting help if things go wrong. "Like so many others, I went down the bread rabbit hole during the pandemic," says Food & Wine associate editor Amelia Schwartz. "I followed the recipes in order, baking one loaf a day and by the end, I was churning out some pretty masterful loaves of sourdough." Author Bonnie Ohara runs Alchemy Bread in Modesto, California, but taught herself the craft and is a perfect instructor for non-professionals. (If you've got little ones you want to get into baking, you can also check out Ohara's kid-focused follow-up, Let's Bake Bread!) Tartine Bread PHOTO: Barnes and Noble $40 $22 at Amazon $23 at Target $40 at Barnesandnoble.com Chad Robertson won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef in 2008, and his talent and knowledge show in this cookbook. If you’re looking for an easy read, this is not it; if you’re looking for a bread cookbook to teach you step-by-step the ins and outs of every aspect of making bread, get ready for a life-changing baking experience. Robertson's basic recipe is explained with numbered steps right from the beginning. But pay attention, because the steps aren’t repeated, meaning you’ll have to master them before moving on. The King Arthur Baking Company Big Book of Bread PHOTO: Amazon $45 $23 at Amazon It may not even be out for a couple months, but we're already calling it: This is a new classic. King Arthur Baking Company makes some of the country's finest flours — and has been doing so since 1790. The brand's website is packed with always reliable recipes for everything from basic sandwich bread to yeast-raised sticky buns. King Arthur's latest cookbook is a similarly varied collection, with lots of global influences. It includes recipes for Mexican conchas and bolo bao from Hong Kong, Jerusalem-style bagels and Japanese milk bread. We're especially excited about the savory entree items like meat-topped flatbread sfeeha halaby, pan-fried sheng jian bao, and a sourdough lasagna. Bread Head PHOTO: Amazon $45 $27 at Amazon $45 at Barnesandnoble.com James Beard Award winner Greg Wade is all about traditional techniques, long fermentations, and freshly milled flours. And this book spills his secrets from pizza dough to injera, along with lots of pastries and other sweets. Bread Head is a pretty high-level cookbook, but it's ideal for fans of artisanal flours. "These are essential recipes that are especially good for home bakers working with both traditional and freshly milled flour," says Food & Wine associate editorial director Chandra Ram. The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook PHOTO: Barnes and Noble $35 $20 at Amazon $20 at Target $20 at Walmart If you live for bread baking, you may find yourself bored making the same few recipes. The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook is a beautiful global collection, including loaves, baguettes, enriched breads, conchas, bialys, and more. There’s a feel-good factor as well: Hot Bread Kitchen is a New York City bakery that employs, educates, and empowers immigrant women, who in turn contribute recipes from their homelands. Flour Water Salt Yeast PHOTO: Amazon $35 $17 at Amazon $17 at Walmart $35 at Barnesandnoble.com If you’ve ever had truly exceptional pizza, you’ve probably noticed the quality of the bread — yes, bread — the other ingredients are perched on. In this book, Ken Forkish goes into granular detail on how to make dough rise in the best possible ways, whether it's intended for a tall, round boule or a thin-crust pie. And if you adhere to his rules and instructions, your bread baking will be on par with the pros. One thing to keep in mind is that this book goes through a lot of flour in pursuit of the perfect leaven, the long-fermented starter needed for peak tang in the completed bread. The 16 Tools You Need to Bake Better Bread at Home My Bread PHOTO: Amazon $35 $31 at Amazon Jim Lahey is the creator of the famous no-knead dough technique, which involves mixing flour, yeast, salt, and water together quickly, then leaving the ingredients alone for 12 hours before baking in a Dutch oven. While it sounds like a very unusual technique, it’s a great way for beginners to start to understand the fermentation process. His cookbook teaches you how to nail this innovative bread-baking method and features tons of images and tips on what to do with all that bread you’ve baked but didn’t eat, such as making breadcrumbs from stale bread. This new 15th-anniversary edition also adds a few new recipes, plus a foreword by Martha Stewart. (Can't wait for September 17? The original 2009 version is still available.) The Bread Bible PHOTO: Amazon $40 $28 at Amazon $40 at Barnesandnoble.com $40 $38 at Bookshop.org Rose Levy Beranbaum's classic absolutely lives up to its ambitious title. Whether you want to make ciabatta, biscuits, sourdough, or rye, its 600 pages of wisdom will see you through from start to finish. Beranbaum's "Ten Essential Steps of Making Bread," are the Ten Commandments of this bible — from fermenting, kneading, and proofing to slicing and storing your loaves. The helpful tips for success throughout the book help you understand the techniques and ingredients involved in each recipe, and you can't go wrong. The Pain D'Avignon Baking Book PHOTO: Barnes and Noble $40 $20 at Amazon $20 at Walmart $40 at Barnesandnoble.com The story of Pain D'Avignon is very touching, with a group of friends fleeing war-torn countries to create a bakery revered by foodies and chefs alike. This book is an adventure story and a complete masterclass in baking the types of loaves people will talk about weeks after your latest dinner party. We asked author Uliks Fehmiu what made him share the formerly top-secret recipe. “Long gone are the days when expert bakers hid their recipes and methods as top-secret government classified documents,” he says. “Recipes and baking techniques are now more easily accessible. Our desire is to share that passion and joy for the bread making process with everyone. If we could do it, you can certainly as well.” And don’t be overwhelmed by all the steps involved. Fehmiu says, “if you like to cook or bake, you already know how enjoyable and rewarding the process can be.” Pastry Chefs Share the 19 Most Essential Baking Cookbooks of All Time New World Sourdough PHOTO: Amazon $28 $16 at Amazon $13 at Walmart $28 at Barnesandnoble.com In this book, Instagram-famous baker Bryan Ford focuses on North, Central, and South American bread making practices as opposed to European. "Most people think of sourdough as a Tartine country loaf, a specific-looking bread that has specific ingredients," he told Food & Wine. "Let's be more inclusive. Let's accept that pan cubano is also sourdough, and pan de coco is sourdough, and look at it as such." Ford also ties in his Honduran and New Orleans roots to further flesh out this eye-opening redefinition of naturally leavened bread. The 4 Best Bread Cloches for Crispy Sourdough, According to Our Tests The No-Fuss Bread Machine Cookbook PHOTO: Target $15 $8 at Amazon $9 at Walmart $13 at Barnesandnoble.com Depending on who you ask, bread machines are either the best or worst inventions since sliced bread. There are times when the fresh bread comes out perfect and other times, it’s a crumbly mess.The No-Fuss Bread Machine Cookbook features variety of ways to use your bread machine, along with the nutrition information as well. A huge bonus is in the introduction, which helps explain why some breads fail and how to fix them. This is an excellent cookbook for beginners or anyone wanting easy bread-baking tips for their bread machine. Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day PHOTO: Amazon $35 $18 at Amazon $18 at Walmart $35 at Barnesandnoble.com Jeff Hertzberg M.D. and Zoe Francois simplified baking with their popular Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, and this sequel adapts the easy method to avoid wheat, barley, and rye. For anybody with gluten sensitivity or celiac disease who still craves a sandwich, this book is a godsend. And you don't need any previous bread experience or expertise to get started. Our Expertise Rachel Weingarten is an internationally recognized lifestyle writer, weekly style columnist, and award-winning author. She has bylines in InStyle, PEOPLE, Allrecipes, and more. As a former bakery owner, she determined the best bread cookbooks based on her hands-on experience testing out recipes. Food & Wine senior writer Jason Horn updated this list with additional new selections. He's been writing about food and drinks for nearly 20 years, for publications including Serious Eats, Liquor.com, Playboy, and Travel Channel. He's made bread near-weekly for years and is quite proud of the white chocolate sourdough recipe he created himself. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit