Rebecca Eisenberg is a food blogger, recipe developer, and food photographer who founded the popular baking blog The Practical Kitchen in 2019. Her recipes have been featured on
BuzzFeed,
King Arthur Baking,
The Kitchn, and
Well+Good. Thanks in part to her viral small-batch bread recipes, she has built a community of devoted social media followers and newsletter readers. She is the author of
Small-Batch Breads.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Using just one cup of flour, create sweet and savory bagels, buns, rolls, and pastries with 50 approachable and accessible recipes from the creator of The Practical Kitchen.It all started with a recipe for miniature focaccia made in a loaf pan. That recipe went viral again, and again, and again. Now, trusted food blogger Rebecca Eisenberg brings her baking expertise, accessible recipe writing, and gorgeous food photography to this collection of sweet and savory small-batch breads made with just one cup of flour. Whether you’re brand new to bread baking or a seasoned baker,
Small-Batch Breads is for you.
Why bake small batch breads? Maybe you’re serving just one or two. Or you’re looking to minimize food waste. Maybe you're a new baker just learning the techniques—a small bread is lower-risk than a large loaf. Maybe you don’t own a stand mixer or you’ve got a tiny kitchen counter. Or maybe you just like cute little things.
With fifty easy-to-follow recipes, including 100+ step-by-step photos, you can make adorable crusty loaves; two bagels for brunch on demand; an oversized, Nutella-filled pop tart; and, of course, Rebecca’s viral Loaf Pan Focaccia.
Rebecca covers all the bread bases with recipes perfect for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, such as:
- Little Loaves: Loaf Pan Focaccia, Foot-Long(-ish) Baguette, Classic Brioche Loaf, Overnight No-Knead Crusty Bread
- Buns and Rolls: Just Two Bagels, One Large Kaiser Roll, Stovetop English Muffins, Just-Like-the-Tube Buttery Crescent Rolls
- Twists, Sticks, and Braids: “Limited” Garlic Breadsticks, One Large Soft Pretzel, Ooey-Gooey Cinnamon Rolls, Mini Chocolate Babka
- Flatbreads, Crackers, and Pizza: Single Scallion Pancake, No-Knead Naan, Thin-Crust Pizza, Three Flexible Flour Tortillas
- Biscuits, Pastries, and Quickbreads: Flaky Mini Buttermilk Biscuits, Oversized Nutella Pop-ular Tart, Fruit Preserve Pastries Two Ways
With easy-to-follow guidance and minimal ingredients,
Small-Batch Breads is the perfect housewarming, engagement, graduation, birthday, or holiday gift for any budding bread baker.
“
Small-Batch Breads is the cookbook you did not even know your library was missing . . . [making] bread baking 100 percent less intimidating (and dare I say easy peasy) when you can do it on a smaller scale—and with the wonderful Rebecca Eisenberg guiding you every step of the way.”
—Jessie Sheehan, author of Snackable Bakes“Sometimes less is more, even when it comes to bread baking. Rebecca Eisenberg’s
Small-Batch Breads is a perfect little book, whether for beginners looking to make great bread at home without fear of wasting flour or for more seasoned bakers looking to downsize their breads without downsizing results.”
—Andrew Janjigian, head baker at the Wordloaf newsletter and author of The Bread Baker’s Pocket Companion and Breaducation“How wonderful to have such an approachable and joyful guide to bread baking. Whether you’re an expert or a novice, Rebecca Eisenberg is the friend you want in the kitchen.
Small-Batch Breads is a delight to bake from, to eat from, and to read.”
—Aubrey Gordon, New York Times bestselling author and co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast“
Small-Batch Breads is an accessible and engaging cookbook for beginner and experienced bakers alike. Rebecca Eisenberg explains her techniques well, she includes a wide range of recipes, and her recipes just work every time. But the thing I love most is that this cookbook is so fun to bake from. Highly recommended!”
—Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author“
Small-Batch Breads makes learning to bake bread feel so approachable. By starting every recipe with only one cup of flour, Rebecca Eisenberg encourages bakers to experiment and build confidence with the help of beautiful step-by-step photos, thoughtful instructions, and helpful tips throughout.”
—Kristin “Baker Bettie” Hoffman, author of Baker Bettie’s Better Baking Book
“Whether you’re looking to expand your bread-making skills, have limited kitchen space, or want to satisfy your carb cravings as they come without having to commit to a full batch, you need this book!”
—Gabi Moskowitz, author of Dead in the Kitchen“Rebecca Eisenberg’s recipes are always incredibly well tested, science-backed, and super reliable. This book is the most amazing back-pocket guide, both for beginner bakers and for those looking to expand their small-batch bread repertoire. Plus she uses weight measurements—that’s an instant purchase for me.”
—Erin Clarkson, founder of Cloudy Kitchen“Warm, fresh bread is one of life’s greatest pleasures. With
Small-Batch Breads, Rebecca Eisenberg has made bread baking at home more accessible than ever before! Armed with this book and a bag of flour, bakers of all levels can enjoy baking bread at home.”
—Erin Jeanne McDowell, author of The Book on Pie
“In her encouraging and accessible debut,
Practical Kitchen blogger Eisenberg shows readers how to make small batches of sweet and savory baked goods. Eisenberg’s conversational tone (‘Kneading in the butter gets messy and takes time,’ she admits about making classic brioche) and easy-to-follow instructions add to the appeal. This will excite veteran bakers and inspire confidence in newcomers.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
IntroductionHi, hello! Do you want to make bread but keep finding recipes that produce giant loaves? Or worse,
multiple giant loaves of bread you know will go bad before you can finish them? Maybe you live alone, have a small family, or are an empty nester who used to make bread for your large family but aren’t sure how to do it now that your kids are out of the house. Maybe you have a small kitchen and find it baffling how so many bread recipes expect you to manage large quantities of dough on a tiny kitchen counter. Or maybe you’re frugal and don’t want to use up half a bag of flour to make more bread than your freezer can handle. I hear you. I got you.
Small-batch breads to the rescue.
I started making small-batch breads during the early days of the pandemic lockdown as a way to save money on ingredients during recipe testing, intending to scale up the recipes to full-size in the end. I had only recently started my blog,
The Practical Kitchen. I hadn’t yet gone to pastry school, and though I had been a hobby baker for almost a decade, I was new to recipe development. Scaling down my favorite bread recipes taught me a lot about the way bread works and made me a more confident baker. And with each new, tiny golden brown loaf of bread—the perfect amount of bread for me and my husband to share—I found myself thinking “Hmmm . . . other people might love making small loaves of bread, too.”
A year after I shared my first small-batch bread recipe—the Loaf Pan Focaccia (page 47)—it suddenly went viral. And kept going viral over and over again. At one point, I was racking up more than one thousand new social media followers a day. My site saw more traffic than it did at the height of the pandemic sourdough craze.
The message was clear: The world needed more small-batch bread recipes.
I quickly got to work on small-batch recipes for ciabatta (page 50), a baguette (page 54), and challah (page 132), which people totally ate up literally and figuratively. Soon, I had a long enough list of bread recipes I wanted to scale down to fill a . . . well, to fill a cookbook.
My goal with this cookbook is to give you the opportunity to try your hand at breadmaking, no matter your skill level. I’ve broken each recipe into clear, concise steps, with plenty of visual cues to follow along the way. And before you even get to the recipes, I’ve included a brief overview of common breadmaking terms and techniques so you can feel confident following the recipes and understanding why they work. Whether you continue making small-batch breads or work your way up to full-size recipes, I hope you come away feeling much more confident as a breadmaker.
The best part of these small-batch recipes isn’t just that they changed my life. I regularly hear from readers who found breadmaking less intimidating and more accessible with fewer ingredients at risk of waste. And I hear from people who have small kitchens, small families, small freezers, tight budgets, and minimal kitchen equipment, who love that they can also enjoy fresh homemade bread.
And now that you have this book in your hands, I hope these recipes change your life, too.
