March is nearly here and I’m looking forward to the warm day forecast for today! I’ve started some seeds for the garden, and the rest are on their way. It’s still quite a while before we can plant outside, but those days no longer feel so far off.

I have a great lineup of breads for you this month, and an introduction to a special organization. Here you go!

March 5: Oat porridge sourdough loaf. Rolled oats are soaked and mixed into a hearty sourdough loaf that might just cure your winter blues. A slice of this bread, toasted, will bring a smile to your face!

March 12: Orange vanilla scones. I love a good scone, and this week I’m baking for a cause. House of Hope is a Christian orphanage and school in Madagascar, run by a friend we got to know while living in England. I’ll be using fresh oranges and homemade vanilla in these, and all the profits will go to House of Hope. My kids have a goal of raising enough money to sponsor a child for a year: $504. They will be helping with the scones this week! The pastor there, Rev. Jean Rajaonasy, will be visiting us in March, and speaking at St. Paul’s Lutheran about his work. 4 scones per order.

March 19: Maple Spelt sourdough loaf. This bread has become a tradition! I collaborate with Rebel Farms in Osseo for this loaf – their syrup is so rich and flavorful. Freshly milled spelt is the only flour in this bread. We look forward to this every year!

March 26: Sourdough banana bread muffins. Our family loves a loaf of banana bread, but muffins are more portable. These are great for on-the-go days, or a quick breakfast that I feel good about giving my family. I’ll use a mix of flours, and walnuts, to up the nutritional content in these. 4 muffins per order.

House sourdough loaves are also available to order, either for the month or on a weekly as-needed basis. We eat this bread with most everything, and it’s the fastest way to an easy meal. Sandwiches, grilled cheese, croutons, garlic bread, toast – it’s so versatile and we love it!

I don’t know about you but I’m feeling the slog of mid-winter. The sunshine sure has helped, but those long gray days seem to put us all in a funk. We’re getting outside when we can, and the kids are having fun building Calvin and Hobbes-esque snow creations in the backyard! I’m grateful for this time that they can be free and play.

For this week’s bake I polled my family. I had the other weeks of February planned out, and it was my daughter Miranda who vied for her choice to be on the list. She wanted to try the flavor combination of lemon and white chocolate in cookie form, and I have to say I was a bit skeptical. Turns out, the perpetually hungry teenager was on to something! I made a test batch and knew she was on to something. We don’t eat a lot of cookies here, but when we do we really try to do something special. I’m still tweaking the recipe, but the flavors are outstanding. They’re refreshing and cozy all at the same time, perfect for bright wintery days. I hope you’ll give them a try this coming week!

I’ve been thinking about the idea of success with the Winter Olympics in full swing. These elite athletes train a lifetime for a moment on the world stage. All of their preparation cannot guarantee a gold medal, or even a personal best. It’s been encouraging to hear athletes talk about success not only in terms of winning but of the pursuit of excellence. That idea seems fitting for long days where the routines of life can feel heavy. What does it mean to pursue excellence in the Christian life? How do we best think about success and shortcomings within that pursuit? Heavy questions for a bread email, I know!

Sourdough loaves with freshly-milled flour are available this and every week. If you’re looking for an introduction to sourdough bread, this is the one to try. Not overly sour, but full of flavor and nutrients from the grains, this is the bread I make most often, and the one my family eats most often!

What a week of snow! It’s beautiful outside, and I’m glad to have had some days this week to admire the weather from the inside. The kids are outside playing, making snowmen and snow angels. I can see the neighbors having a snowball fight and having a great time! This is the first winter we’ve had in Michigan with so much snow!

The hard work of shoveling and carrying in wood boxes has had me leaning into heartier meals. Tacos with homemade tortillas, pork tenderloin with roasted veg, baked potatoes with all the toppings. It’s always a balance to find meals that are satisfying but not heavy. 

I follow a similar concept with breads. I like to have something sweet, but I don’t want to have so much sugar that I feel terrible afterward. I’d like to enjoy my bread, and my day! This week’s bake of the week is the perfect bread for me in that regard. It has pockets of sweetness from the dark chocolate and the dried cherries, but without any additional sugar it’s not overwhelmingly sweet. Half of the flour is freshly milled rye, which comes from our friends on their Colorado farm. This loaf is naturally leavened, and that extra time really amps up the flavors. I think you’re going to love this one!

Baking sourdough in winter is a big adjustment from the summer. As long as there is no rush, it’s wonderful! The dough takes much longer to rise, leaving the day with larger windows of time for other pursuits. My house sourdough loaves typically get mixed in the evening and baked the following evening, or the morning after that. It’s more difficult to follow that schedule in the summer when the house is warmer and more humid! I’m enjoying the slower pace in this season.

We’ve made it through the 10 darkest weeks of the year, and the days are getting longer. I don’t know about you, but the cold always seems easier to bear when there is sunshine. We’ll see if I still feel that way after the cold stretch of days headed this way! A number of years ago, when the temps were well below zero, we tried a few outdoor experiments that the kids still talk about! One of them was tossing hot water into the air and watching it turn to vapor. I don’t know if this weekend will be cold enough for that, but it might be worth a try!

In these days of deep winter, we tend to lean into the cozy. The amount of tea made in our home is a bit ridiculous! I also like to thumb my nose a bit at winter with summery flavors. This week: lemon blueberry scones. Two flavors that are the epitome of summer. These are so bright and cheerful, and they’re a good mix of sweet and tart. Scones freeze well, and are a wonderful way to start a gray day – or any other kind!

I recently ordered a few new kinds of wheat berries and am making lists of all the breads I’d like to bake with them. Each kind of wheat has its own unique flavor and character. I’m not an expert, but I do enjoy experimenting with all kinds of flavors. The next few months of bakes should feature a few new grains, so keep an eye out for those!

For my house sourdough loaves, I’m sticking with the tried and true combination of red wheat, white wheat, and spelt. Those freshly milled grains make up 25% of the flour in each loaf, giving you a great portion of all of the nutrients that whole grains bring. If you’ve thought of whole grains as eating cardboard, give this loaf a try!

We’re getting a bit of a spring reprieve this weekend. Hopefully the sun comes out to match the warm temps! It has me thinking already about garden planning and what I’d like to grow this year. Do any of you gardeners have something new you’re looking forward to planting? 

This week’s bake is such a versatile bread that we enjoy year round. Focaccia is a flatbread that’s just thick enough to slice through for an epic sandwich or for garlic bread. It’s also excellent cut into smaller pieces to accompany meals like salads or pastas. We often eat it just as it is for a snack, or dipped in good olive oil. 

This week’s focaccia is naturally leavened and topped with freshly grated parmesan and black pepper. It’s a riff on the classic pasta dish ‘cacio e pepe’. These flavors are so good together, and especially on the sourdough focaccia. I mill white whole wheat for a good part of this bread, adding in all those good nutrients while keeping the flavor light. I think you’ll love this one!

We’re back to school this week after a nice long break. The routine has been a welcome change, though it does take some getting used to again! I’ve been glad to have this week to step back into normal life again before the college schedule picks up with music lessons and other campus-related activities. 

In the fall, I offered a semester subscription, primarily designed for students but also for anyone who keeps closely to the semester schedule. I’m doing the same now for the spring semester, and those subscriptions are open now! It’s a great way to support a student with some homemade baked goods. Not everything that I make is healthy per se, but a good deal of what comes out of my oven is nutritious! This subscription will follow the semester, taking off during spring break with the final bake at the beginning of finals week. If you or someone you know would enjoy a semester of sourdough loaves and/or the bakes of the week, those subscriptions are available now through Tuesday, with the first orders delivered on Thursday, January 15th!

I hope these past few weeks have been those of rest and refreshment, as well as happy celebrations with friends and family. We are back from a week of travel, and it feels so good to be home again!

January subscriptions are open now, and I have a great month of breads for you. Here’s the menu!

January 8: sourdough bagels (each order is for 3 bagels)

January 15: parmesan and pepper sourdough focaccia

January 22: whole wheat sandwich loaf

January 29: lemon blueberry scones (each order is for 4 scones)

Subscribers for the bake of the week will save a few dollars over the regular price of ordering weekly!

My new mixer handles all kinds of dough easily, and I’m excited to put it to work with this week’s sourdough bagels. I’ve always made those completely by hand, since most stand mixers aren’t powerful enough for bagel dough. While I’m grateful for the arm workout, I’m also looking forward to letting the motor do the heavy lifting so I can focus on all of the other important details! These bagels are quite different to what you might find in the grocery store. They are chewy with just a thin crust, they are a tiny bit sweet – just a hint. And the flavor is so full and interesting. We just love these at our house!

House sourdough loaves are also available to order, both as a subscription and on a weekly basis. If you’re making soups and stews in these cold months, this is the bread for you. A hearty stew and a slice of sourdough will keep you warm and satisfied! One of our winter favorites is this one – the kids ask for it all the time. Sourdough loaves can be ordered either sliced or unsliced, depending on your preference.

Early next week I will also make semester subscriptions available. The spring semester has more weeks available for bread delivery, which means more opportunity for delicious food! Watch your email to get in on the subscription for a whole semester of homemade breads 🙂

December has flown by and here we are in the third week of Advent. We will cut our tree this weekend and have it all ready by Christmas Eve. Gifts are wrapped, and we might even get our Christmas cards sent out this year – ha! Today brings gingerbread houses with friends, and next week we’ll celebrate with family.

A number of you have requested sourdough dinner rolls for your own celebrations, and I am happy to oblige! They are the only item available to order next week for pickup on Tuesday, December 23rd at my home in Hillsdale. These dinner rolls are impossibly soft, buttery, flavorful – they’re everything a dinner roll should be, and naturally leavened! They’ll also freeze well, and make for great little sliders with whatever leftover meat you might have from your feasting. 

The bakery will be closed the week following Christmas, but I’ll fire the oven back up in January. Watch your email after New Year’s for the January menu and subscriptions! I’m still finalizing the menu – there were so many favorites from this past year. If you have anything from 2025 that you’d love to have again, please let me know!

I don’t know about you, but this season can be filled with so many sweets that I find myself longing for a change. This week’s bread is filled with healthy whole grains and toasted pecans with just a pop of sweetness from dried cherries. I’ll use a mix of spelt and white whole wheat, adding both great flavors and nutrients into this delicious sourdough loaf. As with most breads, it will freeze well and would make a wonderful addition to your Christmas feasting!

The kids have been enjoying the snow outside, making igloos and snowmen. It’s been a welcome change this year that everyone can get ready on their own to play outside! We’re still figuring out a good system for wet coats and snow pants. If anyone has one that works well, feel free to share it with me!

Our chickens are finally back up to laying plenty of eggs for us! It was a long drought. Between losing chickens over the summer and others molting, we were gathering only a few eggs each day, if that, for months. It sure is nice to have more than enough for us to eat and for Miranda to sell!

I will be baking as usual this coming week – house sourdough and sourdough with toasted pecans and dried cherries. The following week, just before Christmas, I will have sourdough dinner rolls available, just as I did at Thanksgiving. Those will be ready to pick up on December 23rd, and orders for those are also open now, as well. That pickup will only be at my home. We’re traveling a bit after Christmas, but I’ll be back in January with a new month of wonderful breads for you!

Growing up, we would all enjoy an occasional glass of eggnog together at this time of year. Not the boozy kind, but the one straight out of the carton. We had special Christmas mugs and my mom would sprinkle nutmeg on top. These days I’ve learned to make aged eggnog for the adults, and a non-alcoholic version for the kids. But the syrupy sweet carton does call to me now and then from the grocery store!​

Whether you’re a fan of eggnog or not, this week’s bake has such wonderful flavors! With butter, sugar, eggnog, and plenty of nutmeg, these muffins disappeared fast at my house. I’ll add a crumbly streusel topping to make them extra tasty! I hope you’ll enjoy these as much as our family does.

These cold days have us spending more time indoors. We pulled out the Christmas picture books and it’s been so delightful to watch the kids revisit favorites from years past. Soon we’ll set up our nativity sets and slowly get the house ready for Christmas. The tree doesn’t come home until just before Christmas; we adopted the German tradition of real candles on the tree, so we make sure to have as fresh of a tree as possible!​

I’ve added a second worker to my little bakery. Her name is Bambalona, and she’s Italian. She can mix A LOT of bread at once, and does so quietly and effectively. We’re still getting to know each other, but I think we’re going to get along just fine 🙂

House sourdough loaves are available this week, either sliced or unsliced. The freshly milled whole grains in these loaves make them extra delicious and good for you. I just ordered more organic grains, so we’re set for a while!

Pumpkin bread, as most of us know it, is ubiquitous in the fall. Every church potluck, or other gathering, will feature a loaf or two of this classic. Moist and dense with a whole lot of oil and sugar. This week’s bake had been in the running for October, and when I decided on something else instead, my children nearly revolted. Rather than face mutiny at home, I thought it best to make it available to all of you! This is a different kind of pumpkin bread. For one, it’s naturally leavened, giving it extra flavor and wheat tolerance. Also, while it’s lightly sweetened, it does not have nearly the calories and fat of quick-style breads. Light and fluffy, this loaf most resembles a sandwich loaf in its structure. Pumpkin gives it a beautiful color, and the golden raisins are the sweet pops of surprise. Fall spices round out the flavors for a beautiful and delicious loaf! Pumpkin sourdough freezes well, and will make an excellent easy breakfast for your post-Thanksgiving plans.

We’re in a shoulder season with our wood stove. We all love a fire in the evenings when it’s chilly, but it’s too warm during the day to keep it running. Most mornings there are children huddled around the fire, with books, blankets, and a cup of tea. It makes the long, cold days so much more bearable!

My house sourdough is available this week, yet, but I will not be baking it during the week of Thanksgiving. If you need to stock up before December, now is the time! Sourdough dinner rolls for Thanksgiving week will open first for subscribers, and then for everyone by the end of next week. Rolls will be available on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, for pickup at my home only. Watch for that email next week!