The Baker's Percentage

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 hundred per cent whole wheat loaf. With it, bakers can scale up or down, from one loaf to many 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. Enter the baker’s percentage: a simple set of parameters that allow you to bake bread using one of multiple pathways. With chapters on Flour, Starters & Leaven, Mixing & Kneading, Bulk Fermentation, Dividing, Shaping & Proofing, Baking, and more, this is a thoroughly comprehensive guide to baking bread, whatever way takes your fancy.

The Baker’s Percentage is unlike any other cookbook. There are no recipes. Instead, it encourages the reader to bake bread with confidence, according to their own needs and schedule. The book intertwines this bread-baking know-how with stories from the author, Mara Rapini, and her cooking school Village Dreaming & Farm ORTO.

About the Author

Mara Ripani is an Italian–Australian bread-baking expert and photographer who runs masterclasses on how to bake wild yeast sourdough bread from her farm in country Victoria, Australia. At her 15-acre farm near Daylesford, Mara has built multiple kitchens, a large vegetable garden and various orchards in order to share and help educate people about the importance of slowing down, growing food and living with nature.