The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook

New from the top of the line writer of My Bread: An unmistakable, represented manual for making sourdough and the Italian-roused bistro dishes from probably the best pastry shop.

Established in 1994, Sullivan Street Bakery is famous for its remarkable bread, which graces the tables of New York's most praised cafés. The bread at Sullivan Street Bakery, snapping earthy colored outwardly and light and fragrant within, is propelled by the dim, hard portions that James Beard Award–winning dough puncher Jim Lahey found in Rome.

Jim expands on the progressive no-manipulate formula he created for his first book, My Bread, to plot his simple framework for making sourdough at home. Applying his Italian-motivated strategy to his collection of pizzas, baked goods, egg dishes, and bistro works of art, The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook conveys the kinds of a pastry kitchen Ruth Reichl once called "a congregation of bread."

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About the Author

Jim Lahey has received two James Beard Awards and is the author of The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook, My Bread, and My Pizza. He lives in New York City with his wife and coauthor, Maya Joseph.

I am giving this book five stars because the two recipes (Hamilton Buns and Pane Bianco) I made came out very good, and I like Jim Lahey from what I see and hear in interviews; but I do want to share a few points for folks to consider. First, if you are looking for a bread baking book, this isn't really it. There are about 15 bread recipes and then pizza, sweets and some food recipes. Also, at least as far as the bread recipes go, this book is not for a new baker. One needs to either have a starter, or be willing to make or buy one. Almost every recipe requires either a dutch oven or a pullman pan. Also, I only made two recipes; but one of them is missing information in the instructions. Specifically, the Pane Bianco instructions did not say when to add the salt (based on experience, I added with the flour in the initial mix). --Broklynreader

Very rarely does a cookbook make you feel invincible, like you're a seasoned chef immune to mistakes. I've also never written an Amazon review before, but this pushed me over the edge. I started baking with sourdough just two months ago and a friend just casually lent this to me. I started with a couple of the bread recipes, cookies, the panettone. Literally every single one of the 10+ recipes I've tried has turned out exceptionally delicious and I promise I'm traditionally not an amazing cook. I'd been searching high and low on the internet for directions for keeping a stiff sourdough starter (biga, italian-style) instead of a levain (high-hydration, french style) and was really stoked about the low-maintenance recipe here. It's great. (When I do want to try a recipe that calls for levain (in a different cookbook) I just take a little bit of my biga and make it levain-style the night before and use all of it for that recipe.) But even the recipes in this book that don't have anything to do with sourdough are really wonderful. I read in a more critical review that his starter directions aren't thorough enough if you're beginning from scratch and I can sorta see that. Having already gone through the work of growing my starter, all of his info was useful to me. Also, I promise I don't work for Jim Lahey or his publisher, this book's just got me dreaming of starting my own bakery. --We Leavvit

I love this bread book. While I’m a fairly experienced bread baker, I found this book to extremely helpful in making hi hydration breads. The photographs are very helpful. I’m using the recipes in this book, quite frequently. In fact, I made my Thanksgiving dressing using bread made with the Pane di Latte (milk bread) recipe and was astounded when two of my grandson’s college age friends wanted to know what kind of bread was in the dressing. And they were very disappointed when they discovered they couldn’t buy it anywhere. --Ernos

The Sullivan Street Bakery Cookbook