It started with me crouching behind a drain in Tiong Bahru at seven in the morning, holding a jar of flour paste and whispering “come on, little guys” to the open air while an auntie walked past and gave me the most spectacular side-eye I have ever received in my thirty-six years of life. That … Read more
Lower air pressure at altitude changes everything about how sourdough behaves—and I learned this the hard way when a reader at 6,200 feet emailed me convinced her starter had died. Her dough wasn’t sick; it was blowing past peak fermentation in half the time my sea-level advice suggested. When you’re baking sourdough at high altitude, … Read more
My first attempt at sourdough English muffins looked perfect from the outside and completely flat and bready on the inside — no nooks, no crannies, nothing for the butter to pool into. It turns out the famous texture comes from a wetter dough than most recipes admit and from resisting the urge to slice them … Read more
The first time I left for a two-week trip, I panicked about my sourdough starter the way some people worry about a houseplant, and I came home to a sad, gray layer of hooch and a starter that took four days of feeding to trust again. After years of conferences, family trips, and one memorable … Read more
I used to bake one beautiful loaf every weekend and watch half of it go stale by Wednesday, because I assumed freezing sourdough meant sacrificing the crust for the sake of convenience. After ruining more than a few loaves — soggy bags, freezer-burned ends, bread that thawed into something closer to a sponge — I … Read more
My first batch of sourdough bagels came out of the boiling pot looking right and baked up like dense little bread rolls with a hole in the middle — no chew, no shine, no bakery snap. It took me a dozen batches to figure out that bagels are not just shaped sourdough; the dough itself … Read more
I’ll never forget the Tuesday morning I cut into what I thought was my masterpiece loaf, only to find a dense, gummy crumb that practically stuck to my knife. After eleven years of sourdough baking—including three years running my own microbakery—I was genuinely baffled. I’d nailed the fermentation. The crust was golden and crispy. The … Read more
I’ll never forget the morning I opened my oven at 5 a.m. to find a collapsed, over-fermented disaster staring back at me. The dough had been bulking for what I thought was eight hours. It had actually been sitting there for nearly twelve, spreading across my proofing bowl like a pancake, its structure completely destroyed. … Read more
I’ll never forget the Tuesday morning I found my sourdough starter container shattered across my kitchen floor. What I bake with: Thick glass and fitted lids that eliminate daily jar wiping and burping chores — 2 Pack Premium Pro Sourdough Starter Jar Kit on Amazon → It was 6 a.m., and I was reaching into … Read more
I’ll never forget the moment my banneton basket betrayed me during a crucial order for my microbakery’s first catering gig. What I bake with: The banneton that stops dough from sticking and slipping during proofing — Saint Germain Bakery Premium Round Bread Banneton Basket on Amazon → There I was, pulling what should have been … Read more
