I hope that each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! However you celebrated I pray that it was a day of joy, gratitude, and delicious food. I think we’ll be eating leftovers for a few days, at least! That’s a gift – I’m taking it easy this weekend after the last few days of cooking 🙂

This coming week is the last week of November, which means Christmas is coming. If you’re looking for a unique gift, consider a month-long bread subscription! I will give you a physical gift certificate so that you have something to tuck into an envelope, and the recipient can work out the details directly with me by choosing the month in which to receive fresh, homemade bread. Look for that option on the site at hillsdalehearth.com/shop/ over the next few weeks!

This coming week I’m making hot cocoa scones. They are as good as they sound! While looking for chocolate chips I discovered hot cocoa and marshmallow flavored chips and knew I wanted to try them in my favorite chocolate scones. You’re going to want these for those cold, gray mornings that are headed our way! I almost always decrease the sugar in recipes by a fair bit, and these are no different. I like to let the flavors shine and keep the sweetness in the background. These scones would be a great addition to a special breakfast, or an afternoon coffee with a friend, or to tuck into a lunch bag for a treat. These scones are sold in sets of 6, and will freeze well for whenever you want them.

I’m always making my house sourdough, and this coming week is no exception. We have been enjoying zuppa toscana lately, made with sausage, kale, potatoes, and a broth made creamy with coconut milk. It hits the spot on a cold day, and is made even better with a loaf of sourdough to go with it! 

During the month of December I’m going to do things a bit differently due to Christmas and traveling. Here’s the rundown:

December 7/8 – House sourdough and honey whole wheat pan loaf

December 21/22 – Christmas cookie box (details next week!!)

December 28/29 – House sourdough and sourdough monkey bread

For the coming week, however, it’s business as usual: pickups at my house on Thursday and Friday afternoons, November 30 and December 1; pickups at Hillsdale College on Thursday afternoon, November 30. Please order your sourdough and hot cocoa scones by Tuesday, November 28 so that I can be sure to get your order ready! Payment is by cash, check, cashapp, or credit card on my website with your order, hillsdalehearth.com.

Just a quick update this week: with Thanksgiving around the corner, I will be baking earlier in the week. All special orders and sourdough loaves will be ready for pickup on Tuesday, November 21st. Please indicate pickup at my home or at Hillsdale College. While orders for special requests are closed, you can still place an order for sourdough loaves until Sunday afternoon, November 19th! My house sourdough is a great choice for all of the post-Thanksgiving sandwiches, to go with turkey soup, for an easy breakfast of toast and eggs, or to cube up to make stuffing. We all need something easy in the days after Thanksgiving; pick up a few loaves to have on hand for easy meals!

Next week I’ll announce the bakes of the week for December. With our own travel and with Christmas, it will be a shorter month for baking, but a good one! Do you have any Christmas favorites that you’d like me to bake for you? Let me know!

I don’t know about you, but I love all the preparations for Thanksgiving dinner. The lists, the planning, the trick of getting everything to the table while it’s still hot – there’s something beautiful about the way that it all comes together. Anything I can do early makes Thanksgiving Day that much less stressful. 

This coming week I’m making my favorite dinner rolls, the ones that will be on our table. I’ll make a big batch and freeze them so that they’ll only need to be warmed on Thanksgiving Day. Let me make the day easier for you with these rolls! They’re naturally leavened and enriched with milk, butter, and egg. They’ve rightly earned the moniker of  ‘cloud rolls’ at our house – they’re soft and squishy while still being substantial. Because they’re sourdough, if you have any left after dinner they will make outstanding slider buns for all that leftover turkey!

As always, my house sourdough will also be available and nice to have on hand for the day after your festivities for an easy meal. Or, if you make your own stuffing, a loaf of homemade sourdough will take it to the next level.

Sourdough rolls and loaves will be available for pickup at Hillsdale College on Thursday, November 16th and at my home on Thursday and Friday, November 16th and 17th. If you have a special request for Thanksgiving, please let me know by email before November 15th! Payment is by cash, check, cashapp, or credit card on hillsdalehearth.com. 

I’m warming my toes by the wood fire as I write this week. It’s one of my favorite places to be during the cold months; the warmth and light go a long way for both body and soul. We’re slowly making changes in our main living areas. Now that we are in year two here it seems like time to hang a few pictures and make this house feel more like our home. Last weekend I painted the dining room and already it feels like a much brighter and warmer space. 

This coming week I’m breaking out a favorite cookie recipe: butter pecan. These are really something special – toasted pecans, butterscotch chips, brown sugar, homemade vanilla, and a sweet and salty dusting that will leave your sweet tooth satisfied! Cookies are such a different process from bread and I enjoy them both. Bread – at least sourdough – is a long process that sees significant transformation. Cookies, on the other hand, come together with a more straightforward process and quicker gratification. If you like salted caramel, or sugared walnuts, or anything that has that salty sweet combo, you’re going to love these cookies!

My house sourdough is on offer again this week – if you’re making soup this bread is a perfect pairing. A crispy crust and tender middle make for a wonderful slice for butter and jam or for dipping into olive oil. If you haven’t tried this bread give it a shot this week!

November subscriptions are still available this week for the remainder of the month, both for house sourdough and for the bake of the week. And if you’d like to make a request for Thanksgiving, please be sure to send that to me by November 15th!

I’m gearing up for my second workshop at Rebel Farm on Saturday! We’ll cover the basics of mixing and shaping sourdough and send everyone home with their own loaf to bake. The farm is a delight to visit, brimming with beautiful veg and alive with knowledge and passion. Be sure to check out their winter offerings at remedygardenarts.com!

Orders can be picked up on Thursday and Friday, November 9-10, from my home in Hillsdale, or on Thursday, November 9, from Hillsdale College. You can order until Tuesday, November 7th, and then I’ll close orders until the following week’s products are available. Payment is with cash, check, or cashapp, or by credit card on the website, hillsdalehearth.com.

Let me know if you have any questions or special requests!

The colors this week have been stunning, and with the warmer temperatures it has been a wonderful time to be outdoors. As I type, the hills behind our house are resplendent with their yellows, oranges, reds, and greens. I am grateful for a view and for the hope of a fruitful space in the years to come.

This week brings not only the bread of the week but also another month for a bread subscription! I will continue to make my house sourdough weekly, with a healthy dose of freshly-milled whole grains. Now that the weather calls for soups of all kinds, a fresh loaf of sourdough every week makes for an easy meal. It’s also a great way to get to know a new neighbor, or the family with a new baby, or the friend that could use some support. Subscribers in November will receive a half dozen cookies with their first week as a small token of my gratitude for your order!

This week’s bread is an oat porridge sourdough. It is a hearty loaf, and soft; a great accompaniment for anything in a bowl! It has a tighter crumb due to the oats, which just means that the butter and honey you slather on won’t drip through quite as much 🙂 This loaf is making its way into my regular family rotation. I hope it will become a favorite for you, too.

November will also bring butter pecan cookies, the way to my husband’s heart. It’s his favorite ice cream flavor and when I found a cookie recipe that called up those same flavors, he was sold. I’ll also make sourdough rolls the week before Thanksgiving, which will freeze well and be ready for your holiday feast. 

During Thanksgiving week, I will offer house loaves on Tuesday (perfect for stuffing!!). If you have a special Thanksgiving request, please let me know at least a week ahead of time and I’ll do my best to accommodate it. Because I will be (likely) hosting Thanksgiving here, any special orders will also be ready on Tuesday. All breads freeze well, and most sourdoughs are even better on day two and continue to keep for several more days. 

​To finish out the month I’ll make double chocolate sourdough scones to balance out the overload of pumpkin and cranberries! If you don’t have a huge sweet tooth, give these a try. They’re chocolatey, but like nearly everything I bake they are not overly sweet. I think you’ll enjoy them!

November subscriptions for house sourdough are $40 for five weeks, including Thanksgiving week.

November subscriptions for the bread of the week are $36 for four weeks, excluding Thanksgiving week.

All breads can also be ordered on a weekly basis – just check the website on Friday for an updated list of what is available.

I will be baking oat porridge sourdough and house sourdough on Thursday and Friday, November 2nd and 3rd for pickup at my home both days and at Hillsdale College on Thursday. Please place your order by Tuesday, October 31st! Payment is by cash, check, cashapp, or credit card on the website, hillsdalehearth.com. 

Any questions or special requests, just reach out!

These gray and rainy days seem to call for a wood fire, a cozy blanket, and something warm to sip. They also beckon me to the oven – something about the warm and spicy smells of fall baking has a way of counteracting the effect that the dark and damp weather has on me. This week I tried out a new (to me) pastry recipe that’s been in my inbox for weeks, just because I felt like baking something out of the ordinary. It’s a satisfying feeling to take normal ingredients and turn them into something that elicits sighs of happiness from those who eat it!

Fall and cinnamon always go together and this week I will be baking pumpkin cinnamon scones. They’re light and tender, full of so much flavor – from the cinnamon chips to the spices in the dough to the sourdough starter and pumpkin – these are a delight for the senses. We’ve had them for breakfast, we’ve had them for dessert, we’ve had them with a cup of tea. They’re not overly sweet, letting the flavors shine! These will freeze well and are available in packs of four scones.

As always I will be baking my house sourdough. My delivery of wheat berries got waylaid and so I have been using a different grain – hard white wheat – in my loaves for the family this week and we have enjoyed it! I will continue to bake this bread throughout the year. It’s a great loaf to go with everything, probably the most versatile bread that I bake. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

I will be baking on Thursday, October 26th and Friday, October 27th. Pickup is at my home in HIllsdale both days and at Hillsdale College (Kendall Hall, 4th floor) on Thursday. Orders will be open on the website until Tuesday afternoon, October 24th.  

Please let me know if you have any questions or special requests! Next week I’ll share the breads of the week for the month of November. Subscribe for the month to be sure you get to try everything that’s coming out of my kitchen!

Pumpkin season is upon us; good news if you’re a fan of pumpkin spice! I enjoy making meals and breads that fit the time of year, using seasonal ingredients where I can. Last night, after the kids were tucked in, my husband and I enjoyed Maple Manhattans with a splash of concentrated (boiled) apple cider. That’s one of my favorite fall ingredients and a (not-so) secret ingredient for apple pie! I’ve also roasted a few pumpkins in my day, especially when we lived in Germany and couldn’t find pumpkin puree in any grocery stores. For this week’s bread I’m relying on Libby’s to bring great pumpkin flavor!

For this coming week’s bake, I’m making a pumpkin sourdough with cinnamon and golden raisins. This is not your typical pumpkin bread, dense and sweet. This is light, airy, barely sweet, and fragrant with cinnamon. The golden raisins add a nice burst of sweetness and the pumpkin brings that gorgeous color and lovely flavor. This loaf is most like sandwich bread in its texture and size. I made some for a neighbor this week who served it alongside chili. We’ve been enjoying it toasted with butter. It would be fabulous with pumpkin butter, or as French toast!

As always, I will be making my house sourdough, a crusty loaf with a good portion of freshly-milled grains. If you’re on the fence about sourdough this is a great place to jump in. It’s not overly sour and is completely naturally leavened, as are all my sourdough breads. I give this a cold proof overnight to give the flavor a boost and to let the natural yeast do its job. That long proofing time aids in the digestibility of the bread, making it something that even many people who are gluten intolerant can enjoy. 

I will be baking on Thursday, October 19th and Friday, October 20th, for pickup at my home both days or at Hillsdale College on Thursday the 19th. Please indicate your preference when you order! I’ll have orders open until Tuesday, October 17th. Payment is by cash, check, cashapp, or credit card on the website, hillsdalehearth.com. 

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you have special requests! I’ve been thinking about the November menu and trying out a few new recipes. If there are breads you’d love to see at Thanksgiving, please shoot that to me in an email. 

The cool, rainy weather has been influencing my menu planning for next week. Chili and cornbread, bean soup, red curry lentils; warm and comforting is the name of the game. But all great comfort foods need a comfort bread. Lucky for you, I have just the thing this week. 

The bake of the week is a sourdough loaf with whole wheat, spelt, and rye flours, along with my usual bread flour. Our youngest child, who usually brings the drama, took one bite, closed his eyes, and sighed with great contentment. I enjoy all kinds of breads, but there is something about whole grains as the weather turns colder that feels like the perfect match. We’ll be eating this bread with bean soup this week, and serving it up with peanut butter, bananas, and honey for breakfast. Aldi was also selling cheese from a favorite Wisconsin creamery this week – Sartori – so that will fit into the menu somewhere, too! 

If you have already subscribed, there is a loaf of this coming your way. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can still catch three weeks of October and enjoy this bread and two more seasonal bakes! You can also order or subscribe for my house sourdough for the rest of October, making it easy to enjoy fresh bread every week.

We had some work done on our yard recently in order to reclaim some space and have a fresh start. Now that it’s clear, we’ve been dreaming about what we will plant and how we would like to use our outdoor space. The future vegetable garden has been plotted out and tilled, and I’m busy researching types of fruit trees that we hope to plant in the coming years. 

I’ll be baking on Thursday and Friday, October 12th and 13th, this coming week. Please order by Tuesday afternoon (October 10th) and I will have it ready for you either at my home or at the college on your selected day. Payment is by cash, check, or cashapp on pickup, or credit card on the website. Please let me know if you have any questions or special requests. I enjoy coming up with something special for dinner parties and events!

Fall has set in with its crisp mornings and drizzly weather. Not the best week for the fair but fun to see the bustle and lights even through the mist! I went for a walk with my eldest daughter this morning and she was enchanted by the mystery of a cloudy misty morning. 

October begins already on Sunday and while Oktoberfest for the Germans is wrapping up it still seems a good time to offer one of my favorite things to make: sourdough soft pretzels. I’ve eaten a lot of pretzels – we lived in southern Germany for nearly three years, where pretzels reign supreme. They’re different than their northern counterparts; chewier and less dry. When I set out to make them the first time, I was drawing on memories of tender, chewy pretzels with just the slightest crunch as you bite into them. I make them the traditional German way with a dip in a food-safe lye solution before baking, and sprinkling with coarse salt. These are the closest I have had to southern German pretzels (Brezeln) since we lived there! While best on the day they’re baked, they will also freeze well. 

This month I am offering a new option: a monthly subscription! If you enjoy getting fresh bread but have a hard time remembering to order, this will allow you to order once and be set up all month. I’ve laid out the bakes of the week for October, and you can choose to order the bake of the week, or a weekly loaf of sourdough, or any combination of those. If you’re interested in a combination you don’t see (like a bake of the week for two weeks and sourdough for the other two), just reach out and I’ll be glad to make a custom order. Choose your preferred pickup day when you order, but also know that I can adjust that for you if you need to adjust for a week. 

Other bakes this month will include pumpkin cinnamon scones, a hearty sourdough loaf with spelt, rye, and whole wheat, and a sourdough pumpkin loaf that is light, airy, and lightly spiced – a change from the dense pumpkin loaf we all know. As always, my crusty loaf of house sourdough will be available each week. You can also continue to order weekly; that process will continue to work the same way.

Please order and subscribe by Tuesday – that gives me enough time to have orders ready by Thursday. Most sourdough items take 2-3 days! The website should be up and running well with credit card payments if you prefer that option. Otherwise cash, check, and cashapp are all available. If you run into any trouble or frustration in the ordering process, just shoot me an email with what you’d like and I’ll take care of it! 

Growing up, every fall found my family at the local orchard picking apples. Almost without fail we would spend a gorgeous Saturday picking and eating until we couldn’t fit one more apple! It’s a tradition that I’ve carried on with my own family, and we all look forward to trying different varieties and especially enjoying everything that comes out of the oven once we get home.

This week I’m making scones with apples from a friend’s tree. But what is a tart apple without a bit of caramel?! A healthy scoop of caramel chips elevates these scones to something that can easily be dessert as well as breakfast. If you want to get extra fancy, drizzle a bit of caramel sauce over the top before you serve them! These scones are the perfect way to usher in fall, even if our weather this weekend is more akin to summer.

As always, I will be making my house sourdough bread. It ferments for just over 24 hours before going in the oven, making it easier on your gut and bringing out all the good flavors in wheat. I mill some of the flour for my house sourdough, giving you all the nutrition of those whole grains. This is a mild-tasting sourdough; it won’t set your teeth on edge like some kinds and it doesn’t have any preservatives – just flours, water, and salt. That being said, it will keep well on your countertop (not in the fridge!) for up to a week, and will also freeze well.

I will be baking on Thursday and Friday next week, September 28th and 29th, for pickup at my home both days and at Hillsdale College on Thursday. You can order here on the website – baked goods are generally available to order from Friday through Tuesday. I turn the ordering off while I prepare that week’s orders, then load the new products for the next week. If you have something you’d like to order in the meantime, or if you have any questions, please reach out to me!