Baking sensation Lacey Ostermann has taken the world by storm with her simple yet ingenious approach to homemade bread.
What started as a passion project in her London home quickly grew into a thriving micro-bakery, selling out as fast as she could bake! Her beautifully crafted loaves and creative recipes soon reached a global audience through social media, where her step-by-step videos and irresistible carb-filled content have inspired millions. Now, in 3 Dough, 60 Recipes, Lacey brings her expertise to home bakers everywhere, proving that professional-quality bread can be easy, fun and endlessly versatile!
At the heart of this book are three foundational doughs – Sandwich bread, focaccia and pizza – each serving as a springboard for a variety of mouth-watering creations. With 20 recipes per dough, bakers can effortlessly transition from a classic load to English muffins, from fluffy focaccia to decadent French toast, or from a simple pizza base to crispy stuffed crusts. Every recipe is designed for success, complete with step-by-step instructions, stunning photography, and QR codes linking to Lacey’s signature video tutorials. Whether you’re a seasoned baker or a complete beginner, 3 Dough, 60 Recipes will transform the way you bake, one delicious loaf at a time.
In Conversation With Lacey Ostermann…
Lacey, we are LOVING 3 Doughs, 60 Recipes. As the title suggests, your book focuses on just three doughs – bread, focaccia and pizza. What made you choose these as the foundation for your recipes?
Thank you so much. I’m a huge fan of Maldon Salt and go through it by the bucketful, so it’s an honour that you’ve chosen to feature my book!
Yes – 3 Doughs, 60 Recipes is based upon three doughs – sandwich bread, focaccia and pizza. I knew I wanted to write a book about bread that demonstrates how versatile doughs can be and I chose these specific doughs for a few reasons…
All three of the doughs are easy for beginners to master. They don’t require any specialist equipment and can be made using instant yeast.
I know from tracking my video performance on Instagram and TikTok pages that these are enormously popular breads that people want to learn how to make (and eat).
They’re also versatile doughs, each with their own hydration level (how much water is in the dough) which means you can use each of them to achieve different things.
- The stickiest one is the focaccia dough, but you can shape it and bake it differently to turn into a crusty loaf of artisan bread or into soft sandwich rolls.
- The sandwich bread dough is drier which means it’s easier to shape so it’s great for things like bagels, cinnamon caramel monkey bread, pretzels, English muffins and burger buns.
- The pizza dough falls somewhere between the two; it’s nice and stretchy without being too dry or too wet – this is perfect for turning into flatbreads, fougasse, ciabatta or breadsticks. Between those three doughs, you really can do quite a lot.
The breads made from these doughs all pair well with delicious toppings, dips and sauces that will elevate the reader’s enjoyment of bread. Things like pizza sauce, dipping oils, pestos, chimichurri, homemade butter, tzatziki etc…these are all bonus recipes included in the book that belong on top of pizzas, dimpled into focaccia or slathered onto toast/sandwiches made from homemade sandwich bread!
From focaccia French toast to pizza dough doughnuts, your recipes are incredibly creative! What’s one unexpected recipe in the book that you’re especially excited for people to try?
Oooh it’s so hard to pick just one! One of my favourites is for the Giant Soft Pretzels which are made using the sandwich bread dough from the book. Warm, doughy, buttery, salty soft pretzels are such a treat, especially when they’re fresh out of the oven – my kids request them often, in fact I just made another batch today!. There is a recipe for Soft Pretzel Bites too, and an option to coat them in cinnamon sugar…they are delicious.
Many home bakers struggle with confidence when working with dough. What’s your biggest tip for overcoming that fear?
This is something I hear time and time again from people commenting on my videos on social media. They’re intimidated by bread making. They’ve never worked with yeast before. They think focaccia requires a sourdough starter that you need to keep alive. They think they need a special proofing drawer or a stand mixer and other fancy equipment. They feel like they might mess up the kneading process. Unfortunately people just overthink it to the point that they don’t try it.
So my biggest tip is to stop overthinking it and just go for it. Find a recipe that seems doable for your level of experience, use a scale to measure the ingredients (this is important for breadmaking), buy the correct ingredients, follow the recipe and see what happens…you may just surprise yourself with the results you can achieve! If you can find a recipe that has a video tutorial to go along with it (on social media, YouTube etc), you will absolutely benefit from that extra visual guidance.
Your book includes QR codes linking to video tutorials – a game-changer for visual learners. How do you think social media has shaped the way people learn to bake today?
Social media has been a brilliant tool for home bakers, in fact it’s how I learned how to make bread during lockdown in 2020. When I started sharing bread tutorials on Instagram a couple of years later, I knew I wanted to produce videos that I would have found helpful when I was first learning how to make bread. A recipe is great, but with bread making it really helps to actually see what the dough texture should look like, how to do a stretch and fold or what the dough should look like when it’s fully proofed. I think people are more likely to try something new or something they perceive to be challenging if they have extra visual guidance to help fill them with confidence as they attempt it.
You’ve built an incredible online community of bread lovers. What’s been the most rewarding interaction that you’ve had with a follower(s).
I have so many positive exchanges with my online community and it never gets old when I receive a joyful message from someone who has just made bread successfully for the first time. I have these encounters all the time and they’re very rewarding!
It’s so nice to actually meet followers in person though. My publisher held an event at Waterstones Piccadilly to celebrate my book’s launch day and some followers came down to get their books signed and sample some focaccia. One follower didn’t know I was going to be at the bookstore that day. She was visiting London from abroad, was browsing in the bookstore and stumbled upon me there. She was so shocked and thrilled, told me how much she loves my pizza dough recipe and bought a book for me to sign. She was just so excited to meet the bread lady she follows and I was excited to meet her too…it was just a really nice encounter on an already special day.
What does a normal day in the life look like for you, Lacey?
My days vary so much day-to-day, but that’s one of the things I love about my job!
Some days are very heavily based in the kitchen with lots of recipe testing and filming videos for my socials or for work with brands. Other days are more admin based with writing up recipes, calls with my management/publishing teams or working on pulling everything together for my website. I edit content daily and engage with followers on socials throughout the day, but I think I need to start scheduling when I do this as it can be hard to properly switch off from it all. Then there are the special days I get to go into London for work events/PR invites etc – those are the most fun!
I have two kids, Alex (9) and Sophie (6), so my working day typically starts after I’ve dropped them off at school, though I might start dough for filming first thing in the morning. At some point in the day I’ll fit in a nice long walk in the East Sussex countryside with our working cocker spaniel, Penny too!
Now that 3 Dough, 60 Recipes is out in the world, what’s next for you? Any future project or collabs in the works?
It’s so great to see my cookbook out in the world! I have a US book tour coming up in early April so I’ll be heading stateside for that soon and can’t wait to meet some North American followers at the author events/demos I’ll be doing.
My current project is building my own website to make my online recipes easier to access for everyone. It’s a huge undertaking, especially trying to do it whilst launching a book, so it’s taking me a while! I also have an ambassador role I’m stepping into that I’m very excited about but I can’t quite announce which company it’s with yet.
I’ve started my popular ‘Will It Focaccia?!’ series back up again after a little hiatus, so there will be some wild focaccia flavours on my page again soon…
There have been whispers about book number two so the ideas for that are already being discussed with my agent. It will be nice to have a little break to recover from book one craziness before diving into the next one though!
Loaded Baked Potato Focaccia Recipe
Potatoes on bread? YES. This one is dedicated to the carb-lovers. Here, a slab of focaccia is jam-packed with all the delicious things that make loaded baked potatoes so good. Potatoes. Cheese. Bacon. Chives. Need we say more?
If you want to know how to make the focaccia dough, you will find instructions on page 22, where you can learn how to make a same-day focaccia. Please note that focaccia dough is wet and sticky. Make sure to dip your hands in water when performing the ‘stretch and folds’ to help prevent the dough from sticking to your fingers. Oil your hands when transferring the dough into the tray and when dimpling it.
Serving size: 1 slab of focaccia (12 servings)
Ingredients:
- 1 batch Same-day Focaccia dough
- 1 medium-sized baking potato
- 8 rashers smoked streaky bacon
- 15–30 ml (1–2 tablespoons) extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
- 175 g (6 oz/1¾ cup) Cheddar, grated
- 4 spring onions (scallions), finely diced
- 8 chives, finely chopped, to garnish
- Maldon Sea Salt, for sprinkling
Method:
- Prepare the Same-day Focaccia dough up to step 10 in the book (page 22). While it is proofing in the tray, start prepping the toppings.
- Thinly slice the potato using a sharp knife or mandoline. Place the potato slices into a bowl filled with cold water and let them sit for at least 15 minutes.
- Cook the bacon in a frying pan over a medium heat, but don’t make it quite as crispy as you normally like it, as it will continue cooking in the oven later. Chop it into small bite-sized pieces.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F) and move the oven rack to the lowest position.
- Once the focaccia dough has fully proofed, remove the potatoes from the water and pat them dry with kitchen paper. Coat the potatoes with a thin layer of extra virgin olive oil.
- Drizzle the focaccia with the olive oil, then evenly scatter two thirds of the cheese over the top of the dough, along with half the bacon and half the spring onions. Using your fingers, dimple these toppings into the dough.
- Arrange the potato slices in a single layer over the top, then sprinkle with flaky Maldon Sea Salt.
- Bake the focaccia for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven and sprinkle with the remaining cheese, bacon and spring onions. Return to the oven and bake for another 10–12 minutes until the potatoes and cheese are beginning to crisp up.
- Sprinkle the chives over the top. Allow the focaccia to cool in the tray for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack and wait at least 15 minutes before serving.
Where To Buy ‘3 Doughs, 60 Recipes’
You can find where to purchase Lacey’s NEW cookbook here and start being creative with food and flavours in the comfort of your kitchen.
Make sure you have your Maldon Salt ready for these recipes! If you are running out, please feel free to browse on our Where to Buy Page to find your nearest store in which stocks our beloved Maldon Salt.
Lastly, we LOVE seeing your creations – please tag us on Instagram using the #maldonsalt so we can share your own take on Lacey’s recipes!
