Modernist Bread at Home

Modernist Bread at Home brings the research-driven approach of Modernist Bread into a format designed specifically for home ovens, home equipment, and real-life baking schedules.

Rather than simply reducing the five-volume professional set into a smaller collection of recipes, Nathan Myhrvold, Francisco Migoya, and the Modernist Cuisine team reconsidered how their methods could work in a domestic kitchen. Recipes were tested for home ovens and common mixers, techniques were simplified where appropriate, and the book introduces practical ways to fit fermentation and bread-making into a normal week.

The first half of the book builds an understanding of the complete bread-making process, including fermentation, mixing, shaping, proofing, scoring, baking, cooling, equipment, and troubleshooting. The second half puts that knowledge into practice through more than 160 recipes covering lean breads, sourdough, sandwich loaves, brioche, rye, challah, focaccia, bagels, bao, gluten-free breads, and more.

What makes the book particularly useful is its focus on solving the problems home bakers actually encounter. Illustrated guides help with equipment choices and scheduling, while techniques such as rescuing overproofed dough, Second-Chance Sourdough, pressure-caramelized inclusions, and improved approaches to high-hydration dough show how scientific understanding can make everyday baking more manageable.

A separate 172-page wire-bound kitchen manual contains the recipes and reference tables, allowing the main book to function as a learning resource while the working formulas stay close to the oven.

For beginners, it provides a structured way into bread-making without requiring professional equipment. For experienced home bakers, it offers the experimentation, troubleshooting, and technical reasoning that distinguish the Modernist Cuisine books from a conventional recipe collection.