Sourdough Baking with Regional Flours - A Weekend Workshop with Sarah Owens

Interest in sourdough leavening continues to grow, with many home bakers curious to use locally grown grains and stone ground flours in their bakes. In this 2-day weekend workshop, we will explore the possibilities of baking with a whole grain sourdough starter culture using regionally-sourced stone ground rye, spelt, oats, and wheat. Through the mixing, shaping, and baking of sourdough breads and pastries, we will discuss and practice how to approach baking with regional flours to unlock unique, terroir-driven flavors and digestibility.

Each participant will complete the process of baking hearty sourdough breads and pastries with local flours from scratch: from hand-mixing, to folding, proofing, shaping, and finally baking and tasting. While the dough is resting, we will focus on using sourdough starter as both an agent of fermentation and as an ingredient in other baked goods, including cakes, cookies, and granola.

You’ll leave the BAKE! workshop with a solid foundation for a hearty, Nordic-style pan loaf and a hearth-style porridge bread; handouts with Sarah’s recipes; and guidance to continue the baking adventure at home. You’ll also go home with a whole grain starter culture!

Meet the Instructor:

Sarah Owens (she/her/they) is a writer, recipe developer, and professional horticulturist who specializes in fermentation and sourdough baking. She leads hands-on and online culinary classes and is the James Beard award-winning cookbook author of Sourdough (Roost Books 2015), Toast and Jam (2017), and Heirloom (2019). Her writing seeks the intersection between the natural world and the most celebrated aspects of living. Sarah believes that food is a powerful medium for storytelling that can anchor a community in shared experiences and traditions. After working as the Curator of Roses at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and baking professionally for over a decade in Brooklyn and Queens in NYC, she now lives in Sonoma County, California where she writes, bakes, and defends her small backyard garden from marauding deer. Sarah's most recent recipes and whole grain baking workshops can be found on her Patreon membership platform and website, www.ritualfinefoods.com.