Friends, I'm so excited to share some news - I'm writing a cookbook! The book will include the master peasant bread recipe with variations — dark chocolate with coffee, whole wheat with cornmeal, lavender honey, to name a few — as well as recipes for using the fresh and days-old bread — sandwiches, toasts, panini, stratas, bread pudding, etc. — right down to the crumb. // alexandracooks.com

A little over a year ago, I received a comment on the peasant bread post that read:

I found your recipe quite some time ago. In the post, you had a link to a source for the Pyrex bowls. I just happened to find it on a day when the bowls were on sale for $1.99 each. I bought 48 of them! I baked bread and gave two bowls to each family at Christmas along with a copy of your recipe…

Nothing, of course, made me happier than to read that. When I shared my mother’s simple recipe in the PB post, I hoped people would discover how easy bread baking can be. But what I hoped for more than anything was that people would love the bread so much that they, too, would want to share it with others — neighbors, friends, or 24 family members.

Over the years, many people have written in noting their favorite adaptations of the peasant bread from simply adding herbs and cheese to making cinnamon-and-sugar monkey bread to doubling the recipe, baking it in three loaf pans, and making sandwich bread for the week.

Many people have had success with the recipe, but every day people write in with questions: Can the bread be mixed at night and baked in the morning? Can the dough travel, say, to a party, and be baked on the premises? Can the bread be doubled and halved, baked in other vessels? Can the dough be frozen?

Friends, I’m so excited to share some news. I’m writing a book that will answer all of these questions. The book will include the master recipe with variations — dark chocolate with coffee, whole wheat with cornmeal, lavender honey, to name a few — as well as recipes for using the fresh and days-old bread — sandwiches, toasts, panini, stratas, bread pudding, etc. — right down to the crumb.

In short, it’s a “nose-to-tail” bread baking cookbook and will be published by Clarkson Potter in the spring of 2017. Most exciting of all is that my mother, the source of all good things on this site, will be helping me with the book. I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting and for making this book possible! I so appreciate your support over the years. And thank you, too, to my agent, Berta Treitl, and to my editor, Amanda Englander.

dough, rising

Three batches: From top to bottom: whole wheat and cornmeal, the master recipe, and dark chocolate with coffee:
dough rising in peasant bread bowls

bread rising stovetop

bread baking

bread, out of the oven

baked peasant bread

Friends, I'm so excited to share some news - I'm writing a cookbook! The book will include the master peasant bread recipe with variations — dark chocolate with coffee, whole wheat with cornmeal, lavender honey, to name a few — as well as recipes for using the fresh and days-old bread — sandwiches, toasts, panini, stratas, bread pudding, etc. — right down to the crumb. // alexandracooks.com

peasant bread, halved

halved bread

The bowls: Vintage Pyrex bowls can be found in various places, but these work beautifully, too.
bowls