Flour, Folds, and Newfound Friends: Inside Our First Sourdough 101 Workshop

Why I launched a sourdough workshop for beginners

On Saturday June 27, my sourdough workshop turned into a full-blown baking classroom, and it was every bit as wonderful as I hoped it would be.

Sourdough 101: From Starter To Loaf is something I have wanted to teach for a long time. I had no interest in doing a quick demo bundled with a lecture in a room full of experienced bakers. I went into this with a singular goal: my students, ideally beginners, will not have to endure much of the misery that comes with the sourdough journey.   

I had never baked anything before the lockdowns of March 2020, so you can imagine the level of torture I imposed upon myself during the pandemic. It beats getting sick, and that abundance of time, which allowed me to learn a new craft, also allowed me to collect an abundance of failures. That, plus books and YouTube videos, is how I learned to bake the sourdough you now enjoy.  

I had something else planned for my students. For them to walk away with a live starter on one hand, and a freshly baked sourdough they made themselves on the other, they would have to do most of the work. The class turned into a real, hands-in-the-dough session where four bakers discovered what fermentation feels like, one fold at a time.

Inside our first workshop

We started early, at 730am, the way bake day always starts in our kitchen. I was, of course, up by 430am to feed the starter we would be using that day (In our tropical climate, it takes about three hours for a starter to turn bubbly and ready.). By the time our bakers arrived, everything was set for the very first step: mixing their own dough with their own hands.

What followed was a full morning of coil folds, roughly every thirty minutes, with a lesson tucked into each waiting period. We talked about ingredients: what flours, water, and salt to use, and in what proportions. We talked about shaping, scoring, and all the small decisions that separate a dense loaf from an open, airy one. Most important of all, we talked about starter care while they fed their own starters and throughout the class. It is, after all, the key to good sourdough. 

In between, we enjoyed sourdough (of course) with charcuterie, drank coffee, sampled sourdough discard treats, and talked about other things that had nothing to do with bread, which is exactly how a good workshop should feel.

The first slice

The best part of the day was watching each baker hold up a baked sourdough loaf that she made herself. I also made one with add-ins - the cranberry walnut - the only loaf ready to taste that same day. The sound of the knife breaking through its crust was music to everyone's ears, and the crumb, marbled by the walnut's tannin and the cranberries, was too gorgeous to resist. Each participant went back for seconds, with certainty, since they witnessed it with their own eyes, that sourdough is not a mystery. It is a process, and it can be learned. 

See you at the next class

Our second Sourdough 101 workshop is set for Saturday, July 25, and we would love to have you there. The fee covers everything: tools, ingredients, and your meal. Bring nothing but your enthusiasm and a curious mind. Read more and reserve your spot here. 

Send us a message on Instagram @riseartisanal and we will save you a seat. But do hurry: we have two slots remaining and it's only the 4th of July. 

Hope to hear from you soon!

Mai