Sam Whitaker Sam Whitaker · January 4, 2026
Ask five different bakers when you’re supposed to fold seeds or nuts into sourdough, and you’ll hear five different answers — but two of those answers flatly contradict each other, and only one of them actually holds up under a rolling pin. Some corners of the internet will tell you timing barely matters, that you … Read more
Sam Whitaker · January 3, 2026
A brutal August heat wave turned my kitchen into a proofing box that summer, and the loaf I pulled out afterward had a dense, gummy crumb that clung to the knife like wet clay. I’d followed the recipe exactly, or so I assumed — but I’d nudged the water up without grasping what that change … Read more
Sam Whitaker · January 2, 2026
Most printed recipes will tell you to add 2% salt and move on, but none of them explain what actually goes wrong if you skip it — I found that out the hard way. I was half-listening to a podcast during a bake, running on autopilot, and the salt jar never got opened. Through bulk … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 31, 2025
The jar looked wrong before it smelled wrong — foam crowding up against the underside of the lid, the surface pocked with bubbles bigger than any starter of mine had ever thrown. I’d grabbed the flour tin on autopilot that morning, scooped, fed, and walked away, and it wasn’t until I came back an hour … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 30, 2025
Almost every home baker assumes flour is flour — that any white bag sitting on the pantry shelf will behave the same way once it meets a bubbling starter. I believed exactly that until one Tuesday evening when my starter was doing its thing on the counter and I grabbed the closest bag on hand, … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 29, 2025
There’s a particular strip of marble counter just past my stove — chipped at one corner from a dropped Dutch oven lid — and that’s exactly where I attempted my first hands-only transfer of a fully proofed loaf into the pot. No bench scraper, no dough whisk, just my palms and a stubborn confidence that … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 27, 2025
Don’t trust your cup measurements — they’re quietly wrecking your sourdough. I learned this the hard way one afternoon when a loaf that should’ve turned out gorgeous came out of the oven dense and heavy, more like a brick than bread. The culprit? I’d jammed flour into the measuring cup while rushing, packing it down … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 26, 2025
Pull up any early photo from my baking days and you’ll spot the same disaster every time: a crust split wide open along one side, a jagged blowout that has nothing to do with deliberate scoring. That picture is proof of exactly what happens when you try to score dough with a plain kitchen knife … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 25, 2025
“Can’t you just use a bowl and a dish towel instead of buying some fancy basket?” That’s what my brother-in-law asked me years back, right before I proved myself spectacularly wrong. I’d shaped a loaf, nestled it into a flour-dusted towel sitting inside a mixing bowl, and gone to bed feeling smug about my setup. … Read more
Sam Whitaker · December 23, 2025
My oven mitts are still on and I’m staring down at a loaf that’s just come out flat, pale, and honestly closer to a frisbee than any boule I’d want to photograph. The crumb inside is tight and gummy, the crust barely colored at all, and I already know I did the prep right — … Read more
