About Maurizio Leo and The Perfect Loaf
Hello there, I’m Maurizio Leo, the James Beard Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Loaf and The Perfect Pizza, and the creator of this site. Since 2013, The Perfect Loaf has been the leading independent resource for baking sourdough bread and pizza at home.
But long before any of that, I was a kid in my dad’s pizzeria in Albuquerque, watching him work dough.
The Restaurant (as we called it), along with my mom’s gnocchi at home, taught me early on that good food made by hand takes time. Summers in Italy, with their long family meals and fresh bread hunts, only cemented it.
I took the long way back to dough: a master’s degree in computer science and years spent writing software before I founded The Perfect Loaf in 2013 (and along the way, the site picked up a couple of Saveur Blog Awards and a Webby nomination). The engineering never really left me, though. It’s why every recipe here leans on temperatures, iteration, and written-down results rather than feel alone. But at some point the measuring ends and baker’s intuition takes over. Great bread isn’t complicated technique—it’s simple technique done with attention and flavor given time to develop.
I’m still learning and still experimenting, and if I’m not baking sourdough, I’m probably thinking about it.
He strives for perfection, for the perfect loaf, secretly hoping never to attain it — for where would he go from there?
Jeffrey Hamelman
Every Sourdough Recipe Is Tested. Repeatedly.
Before I publish any recipe, it’s baked repeatedly in my home kitchen using the same ovens, same tools, and same ambient temperature chaos you’re working with. I log dough temperatures, fermentation times, and results for every test bake (the same baking notes worksheet I share here).
One thing that surprises readers is that recipes here continue to evolve after I publish them: I’m constantly learning and improving as a baker, and reader comments and questions regularly send me back to the kitchen to retest, clarify, or fix. If a recipe here says 20 minutes, it’s because that’s what worked across many bakes, not once.
My Cookbooks
The Perfect Pizza
Sourdough pizza, focaccia, and more than forty regional styles from New York to tavern to al taglio to Sicilian, with every dough built to use a sourdough starter and tested in home ovens, pizza ovens, and everything in between.
The Perfect Loaf
A New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2023 James Beard Foundation Book Award for Bread and the 2023 IACP Cookbook Award. The craft and science of sourdough, from starters to breads to sweets.
Go Deeper
Join the Baker's Corner Membership
Baking is better with other bakers. Members get exclusive recipes and guides, and a place in our community where questions get answered daily (often by me, always by someone who’s had the same dough problem).
Travel and Bake With Me
A few times a year I host small group bread trips to visit cities, farms, mills, and bakeries in search of incredible bread and the food that goes along with it. Or, join me in my next baking workshop!
Have a Baking Question?
If you have a burning baking question, I usually hang out with many like-minded—and very helpful!—bakers on The Perfect Loaf’s Discord, where you can post questions, comments, and photos. Come join the community and ask a question.
Or, email Maurizio directly. I’m here to help.
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492 Comments
How long should i wait after adding in the ripe levain and salt to the autolysed dough before beginning the sets of stretch and folds?
Question about my sourdough starter
I’m making a sourdough starter using whole wheat flour. At the end of the first day, I noticed that some liquid had collected underneath the starter. On the second day, liquid had collected on top of the starter, and it hasn’t risen much.
Is this normal during the first few days of creating a sourdough starter, or does it indicate that something is wrong? Could the amount of water or the use of whole wheat flour be causing this?
What should I do at this point? Should I continue with the feeding schedule as usual, or should I change the flour-to-water ratio?
Thank you!
Very common, Sara. Just keep following my procedure, following each step. You can stir in that liquid right before you discard.
Search function is not working
David—give the page a hard refresh! Sorry, sometimes it fails to load. I’m looking into it!