I’ll never forget the moment my banneton basket betrayed me during a crucial order for my microbakery’s first catering gig. There I was, pulling what should have been a picture-perfect boule bread from my trusty proofing basket—the one I’d used hundreds of times—when the whole thing stuck. Not just a little. We’re talking flour flying … Read more
For the longest time, my sourdough loaves looked embarrassing on top. The crumb was decent. The flavor was there. But every time I scored the dough, the blade dragged, the cuts blew out sideways, and my carefully shaped boule ended…
For months, my baguettes looked like sad, deflated hot dog buns. I’d follow every step of the process carefully — the autolyse, the folds, the shaping. Then I’d line them up on a floured tea towel, and somehow they’d just……
For months, I stared at gorgeous sourdough loaves on Instagram and felt genuinely defeated. My bread tasted wonderful. However, the tops looked like something a nervous raccoon had scratched. I’d been using sourdough scoring stencils decorative bread tutorials as inspiration,…
For the first two years of my sourdough journey, I used a cheap plastic scraper I grabbed from a dollar store. It warped after three months, slipped constantly on my wooden board, and left bits of dough stuck to the…
My sourdough loaves were stuck in a rut. Every weekend I’d pull a boule out of the Dutch oven, and every weekend the ear was either nonexistent or completely blown out on the wrong side. My old single-blade lame —…
Shaping was the skill that took me the longest to learn. I could manage fermentation, I could score, I could bake — but for the first year, every loaf came out of the oven looking like it had given up…
I still remember standing at my kitchen counter at 11pm on a Tuesday, staring at a completely deflated loaf. Not just a little flat. Pancake flat. The kind of flat that makes you question every decision you’ve ever made, including the one where you thought sourdough baking was a relaxing hobby. I had done everything … Read more
It was 6:47 on a Sunday morning and I was standing in my kitchen in mismatched socks, staring at a dough that had clearly done absolutely nothing overnight. Flat. Dense. Sad. The banneton had left its pretty spiral pattern on top, sure, but underneath it was basically a frisbee. My husband walked in, looked at … Read more
I want to tell you about the day I set off my smoke alarm three times before 8am, stood in my kitchen waving a dish towel at the ceiling, and somehow ended up baking the most beautiful loaf of sourdough I had ever made in my life. That morning was my official deep dive into … Read more
