How to make sourdough in Asia’s humidity was the starting point for Christopher Tan’s Asian baking recipe book, he says

Cooking instructor and author Christopher Tan’s attempts at making sourdough bread in humid Singapore were the spark for his cookbook of Asian baking recipes

He consulted old-school recipes to perfect Asian crullers, pineapple buns and more, made mash-ups he’d had in mind for years, and a new recipe for durian cake

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Christopher Tan’s cookbook NerdBaker 2: Tales from the Yeast Indies, is a celebration of Asian baking recipes new and old. Photo: Tales From The Yeast Indies

Bernice Chanin Vancouver

Published: 7:15am, 14 May 2024Updated: 7:42am, 14 May 2024

In February 2020, Singaporean cooking instructor, author and photographer Christopher Tan had just returned home from Malaysia after promoting his book The Way of Kueh: Savouring and Saving Singapore’s Heritage Desserts when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Like everyone else, he hunkered down in his flat and, with a lot of time on his hands, began spending his days in the kitchen making sourdough bread – something he was not good at, until he became more in tune with the dough and finally made, not the perfect loaf on social media, but his loaf.

When one of Tan’s students suggested he write a book about his sourdough experience he felt that, because he had just started his sourdough journey, it was too early to do so.

“She was like, ‘But knowing your expertise in other areas and your perspective, you can still teach those of us who have been doing sourdough for a while a different way to look at it.’ So that kind of got me thinking,” recalls Tan while sipping his iced chai at a pulled-tea shop in Singapore’s Arab Street.

“A lot of sourdough books are written in temperate countries, and a lot of the instructions don’t apply here because our weather is so different. I can’t be the only one struggling with this,” he says.

The books do not take into account room temperature and humidity in tropical places such as Singapore, where the mercury hit 36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit) in March, he adds.