The Bread Code Manifesto

Learn how to master the art of baking the programmer way. If you love programming, you will also enjoy breaking some bread. A/B test, iterate and ultimately become a self-taught baker. This repo is dedicated to becoming your bread manifesto with useful tricks and hacks. Furthermore, the goal is to illustrate how easy making bread is and that you can get started today without expensive tools.

This repo is still work in progress and will be updated continuously.

Recipes with yeast

The basic recipe is the source recipe from which the customized recipes inherit. I suggest starting baking the standard bread until you master it. Only then move on to further customization.

Basic bread

Custom recipes:

Recipes with sourdough

Sourdough bread is an all natural bread without any added yeast. The dough gives the bread an amazing you guessed it, sour taste. Any yeast bread can also be made with sourdough instead of yeast.

Make your own sourdough

Custom Recipes:

Common Problems / FAQ

See the guide Common problems / FAQ for strategies to deal with frequent pitfalls that arise when baking.

Tools

Which tools should you buy for baking? Busting some of the tooling myths here. TLDR - you don't need any tools except a bowl and heat source.

Motivation

Did you ever relish the taste of a fresh and warm bread with a crispy crust? Do you know the sound of the crispy crust when you take a bite? And have you ever experienced the delicious and homey scent of a bread coming right out of the oven?

When baking a bread you experience a whole variety of emotions and senses. Furthermore, you step into a world, where simplicity can become very complex. However, reaching perfection is amazing! The feeling of having crafted a perfect combination of all natural ingredients is unique and so special. I say “a perfect combination”, not “the perfect combination” because that is the secret. There is no such thing as the perfect bread. There are so many different possibilities, combinations, ingredients, parameters — every bread is unique!

Being a programmer myself I lacked scientific resources on the internet. In the daytime job, we use A/B testing for almost everything. Why not apply the same proven methodologies to baking?

All the recipes I provide have been A/B tested by myself with different variations. I encourage you to do the same. Try to recreate the same bread with only one parameter changing at the same time. Make notes and log all the different types bread you made. Slowly bread by bread you will become better. You will fail, in fact, you will fail often. Ask yourself with every fail what you could have done better? That's how I have learned and still learn with every bread I make. That's what I call The Bread Code.