Tartine’s Country Bread Recipe (2024)

Curious about the starter - the recipe has us discarding most of it as we establish the yeast, and then all but a tablespoon to make the bread? I haven't seen that much discarded in other bread recipes, so I'm surprised. Also, do you save the starter that the recipe says to discard all but a tablespoon of, store that discarded portion in the fridge and use it for your next loaf? Thanks for any advice!

Also, I may be a little nuts, but I put the directions into a spreadsheet including a column for date/time. I used formulas so that when I type in the date I start (or re-start) the starter I can see when I'll be ready to bake bread, and when I enter the time I plan to start the leaven, I can see when I'll need to be around for the turns and baking etc., and change my start time if it's going to result in a conflict. It was very helpful.

The verbiage in step 3 of this process is rather confusing to some people.On step 3 you say:The night before baking, discard all but 1 tablespoon of the mature starter. Mix the remaining starter with 200 grams of warm water and stir with your hand to disperse.Please change the verbiage to this:The night before baking, take 1 tablespoon of the mature starter, Mix that with 200 grams of warm water and stir with your hand to disperse. Discard the rest of the starter.

I have been baking this bread for years with this method. When people ask me for the recipe, I have to tell them that it is not so much about a recipe, but a way of life... If you want to make your life better, bake this bread.

Loaves come out perfectly delicious without the 3+ hour folding steps. Just salt it, wait a half hour, fold it once, put it in the fridge for 10-12 hours, let it warm back to room temperature, fold it and put it in the dutch oven. Saves a lot of time. Hope this helps.

This is not a recipe, it is a long term relationship. But so worth it. I've made this 15 or so times now and it never fails to please. Reviews of the bread are two thumbs up and when can I have more.

Marcia and others. Most home kitchen scales easily move between English (Ounces) and Metric (grams). But, bakers use metric because it is base 10 and thus fits well with "bakers percentages" which allows one to quickly scale a recipe up or down. So, for 1000 grams of flour if the recipe calls for 2.2% salt it is an easy conversion to get 22 grams. Try moving to metric.

Best bread I've ever made, and I've been baking for 30 years. I make a batch every 10 days or so. I like to retard the loaves in the baskets overnight in the refrigerator as described in Step 11. I then bake them first thing the next morning and enjoy the bread for lunch. It makes the preparation the day before less hectic.

I've read somewhere that room temperature in bread recipes should be considered in the low 70's. Our house never gets to the upper 60's this time of year, so you've got to add lots of time for this (2-3x) for every 10 degrees below "room temp".

You need the starter to be mostly fresh flour and water to get the acidity balance correct. That said, between batches of bread, I usually maintain the starter at a much smaller total volume, so that I don't need to dump as much. Also, there are great recipes around for what to do with extra starter. One of my go-to uses is to make crepes, because for that the activity level of the yeast doesn't matter. The Sourdough Surprises blog has lots of great options.

I only bake one loaf at time, and I simply reduce amounts by half, and it's worked out fine...

I had never tackled anything close to this complicated, but these instructions worked perfectly, turning out 2 glorious loaves on my first attempt. Beginner's luck, maybe, but I found that carrying out the steps as outlined took away much of the mystery. If you're still reading this recipe and wondering about it, try it!

Is there a video showing the steps?

This is now my go-to for bread. Can’t quite get the crust that Tartine Bakery gets but it’s delicious and well worth the time and effort.

Really, really good bread, it’s some work so it needs to be a labor of love

Good recipe but makes twice the amount of leaven needed. If you regularly make other SD recipes that call for 1/2 cup or more of starter then "Reserve remaining leaven ..." makes sense. If you regularly make recipes that, like this one, call for only a tbsp. or so of starter you will throw out 200 grams of leaven so, in step three, I use only 110 g of flour and 110 of water, this gives you enough excess so that you don't have to worry about getting every last gram of leaven into the mixture.

An elegant masterpiece of restraint, simple actions at the right times, patience, and profound understanding of the ingredients and science of baking alchemy. For proper insight into what’s happening here get Robertson’s book “Tartine Bread” which will be a classic reference for the ages. His in-depth explanations and photos help immensely. This book took my bread baking from nothing special to transcendent. A life changing recipe, but get the book for best results. Thanks Chad!!!!

it’s true what they say - making this bread is a long term relationship, but worth it. I think it’s the best bread I’ve ever made. Took me a whole day, but if I have the time, I will be making it again.

I having been making this with great success. I would like to make 3 smaller loaves rather than two large loaves. Could someone tell me how I should adjust the baking time?

This recipe is a great public service!

I did an experiment and I'm here to share about so no one else has to do it! I tried to make this *mostly* gluten free by using the King Arthur GF Bread Flour for most of the bread flour in the recipe.... Even using the additional water suggested on the back of the bag, the loaf did not behave at all like it should have. The result was two very dense loaves... and I cooked them about 10 minutes longer, also a suggestion from KA. I will go back to gluten :)

Can a bread expert help me, please? Great bread but every time I make it I end up with some small “lumps” (firm flour bits) throughout. These develop when I mix the flours into the leaven-water mix; no matter how much I mix (by hand) they persist through all the steps. I “pinch” the ones I find but inevitably miss some small ones. I use 100g more WH flour (and thus reduce the amount of bread flour by same), and 10 g or more water depending on humidity. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for any help!

From the time you stop tossing four pounds of flour in the trash over the course of two weeks, save a tablespoon of starter, and prepare the leaven, it is 18 hours until you have a loaf of bread.

I know I’ve posted similar comments previously but this is the most poorly designed recipe ever. Huge quantities of ingredients are never used. For example, explain where the 2 kilos of flour called for at the beginning end up? Spoiler. At least a third, over a pound is never used. And if we’re going to spend ten days and a kilo of flour making a starter, why dispose of all but a tablespoon? Why not use two tablespoons or a cup to get the bread to rise?

This is my go to recipe and have made this bread 20 times. I bake twice a week. I enjoy sharing my bread with friends.

100g of whole wheat flour equals 1/2 Cup

I can’t discard discard! It’s a great base for cinnamon raisin bread, banana breads, chocolate cakes, crackers and my favorite: pita bread. Strongly suggest sharing your creations!

I’ve made this recipe three times now (the first time I think my eyes were crossed the whole time haha) and it really is incredible. Today I ran out of bread flour and it’s -10 outside so I used King Arthur AP flour in place. Seems to have worked! Bread turns out and tastes great.