It’s snowing as I’m typing tonight and melting just as fast as it’s coming down. Ah, April. The garden is just about ready to be planted, and the apple trees should arrive in the next few weeks. We’ll hope to plant them in sunshine instead of in snow!

This next week I’m making a new-to-me-bread: chocolate chip sourdough. I’ve made various iterations of chocolate sourdough, but never a straight up chocolate chip. Friends, this one’s a keeper! There is no added sugar in the dough, and the sourdough tangy flavor somehow melds perfectly with the dark chocolate chips. I sliced some shortly after it came out of the oven, and the melted chocolate swirls through the bread were well worth the mess on my fingers. Because it’s not uber sweet, this is a great loaf for any time of day. You could turn it into an after dinner dessert with a smearing of Nutella, or something else decadent. But it would be equally as good simply toasted with butter. The kids and I plowed through an entire loaf this afternoon!

As always, my house sourdough is available to order. I make extras of this each week, some for my freezer and some for friends. Some of you have given these as gifts, or brought them to a dinner party. If you’re looking for a wholesome, nutritious bread that also tastes fantastic, this is it. It’s a true sourdough, which means it has fermented for at least 24 hours, breaking down the gluten strands and making it easier for digestion. If you’ve struggled with gluten intolerance, this bread might just be the thing for you. 

Orders in the coming week are back to normal – Thursday and Friday pickup at my home (April 11th-12th), and Thursday pickup at Hillsdale College, Kendall 413. Orders are open now until Tuesday, April 9th. Payment is by cash, check, or cashapp on pickup, or by credit card when you order. Please indicate your preferred pickup location when you order!

I love to fill special requests, so if you have an end of the school year party coming up, let me know how I can help!

A blessed Easter to each of you! I hope that however you are celebrating this weekend, the peace of Christ crucified and risen fills your heart.

Tomorrow we’ll host dinner for 24 – a mix of friends and students, with lots of folks helping and bringing food, wine, and everything else we need for a feast. We’ll have an egg hunt and probably sing some hymns around the piano at some point. It will be a fun and festive afternoon and evening!

This month I have a great bread lineup for you, with a mix of sweet and savory. The first week in April features a sourdough sandwich loaf, with a mix of regular and whole wheat flour along with olive oil and honey to keep it soft. We’ve been enjoying this one with everything this week. Next up will be a chocolate chip sourdough – not too sweet, as the only sugar is in the chocolate chips. There is a bit of rye flour and whole wheat flour to balance out the chocolate. I think you’ll like this one! 

The third week will be a sourdough olive fougasse, a French bread that is shaped as more of a flat bread. It’s about the thickness of a soft pretzel, and has a lovely mix of soft and squishy bread along with a few crunchy bits, like bread meeting a cracker. I mix kalamata olives into the dough for a fantastic savory flavor. Finally, the last week of April I’ll be making pan de cafe – sourdough bread with a coffee swirl. Oh, my. It’s like a cinnamon swirl bread, but with a sweetened coffee filling. If you’re a coffee lover – and even if you’re not! – this bread is just the thing.

For subscribers this month I’m back to a favorite German recipe. This one just seems like spring to me – a fluffy, braided bread (yeasted) with a bit of lemon zest and topped with sugar pearls. If you order a subscription of any kind in April, I’ll include a loaf of this with your first order.

This coming week, April 4th, I will only have orders on Thursday. If you are a Friday subscriber, this is the only week that your order will be ready on a different day. The rest of the month is business as usual! Sourdough sandwich bread is the featured bread this week, and it’s a great one. I’ll top it with white sesame seeds for a little extra flavor and crunch, and it’s perfect for any sandwich you want, as well as toasted with butter and jam (or avocados!). Orders will be open until Tuesday afternoon, with Thursday orders ready for pickup on April 4th at Hillsdale College or at my home.

Always available is my house sourdough loaf, which is also an option for weekly purchase or as a subscription. All breads can be ordered weekly, and subscriptions for both house sourdough and the bake of the week are available at the beginning of each month!

This coming week I’m making hot cross buns, naturally leavened. If you think of sour flavors when you think of sourdough, these buns will disavow you of that notion. They benefit from a sourdough starter, but the added butter, sweetener, raisins, and spices balance the flavors beautifully! Hot cross buns have been a tradition during Holy Week for centuries, and I’m honored to carry it out here in Hillsdale. Here’s one historical take, if you’re interested in knowing more of the tradition.

Always available is my house sourdough. If you’re feeding extra people at Easter, this is a great loaf to have on hand. It makes a great french toast, or cubed and tossed into an egg bake, or sliced to go with all of those egg salad sandwiches. Have a few on hand for easy meals after an Easter feast!

I will only be baking on Thursday, but hot cross buns can be picked up on Thursday or Friday. One of the many benefits of sourdough is that it keeps exceptionally well! If you want to pick up on Friday, these buns will still be fresh and delicious. By Sunday, you may want to warm them a bit to soften them, but we’ve had them in a bread drawer here for nearly a week without a problem. They also freeze well, so bear that in mind if you’re looking to have some on hand for another time, or you want to freeze them until Sunday.

Please place your order by Tuesday, March 26th and indicate Thursday pickup at my home or the college (March 28th), or Friday pickup at my home (March 29th). Payment is with cash, check, or cashapp, or with credit card when you order.

Next week I will announce the baking lineup for April, and open April subscriptions! It’s going to be a great month of baking, with a few breads that are new(ish) to me. Thank you for being with me on this baking adventure. It’s a joy and a privilege for me to know that these breads end up on your tables!

It’s another beautiful day that has me itching to get out into the yard. The leeks I planted in the fall are coming up nicely, and we’re getting ready to welcome our first chickens here in Michigan! Lots of projects lined up for the spring, all of which help to make this house (and yard) feel like home.

This coming week I have the pleasure of baking with maple syrup from Rebel Farm in Osseo. If you haven’t visited there, I highly recommend it! Suzie is passionate about regenerative agriculture and local community and food. She offers a farm share full of beautiful, delicious, and highly nutritious vegetables, as well as options for pasture-raised chicken and eggs. You can see all of the community shared agriculture (CSA) options here. She also offers workshops throughout the year – tomorrow is all about maple sugar! I will be leading one there in April about baking with maple sugar – we’ll make scones with maple and pecan.

It’s Suzie’s maple syrup that’s going into my maple and spelt sourdough loaves this week. This is the bread that makes people gather around the toaster when they smell it toasting! It’s made with freshly-milled spelt, which is the only grain besides the flour in the sourdough culture. Maple syrup, water, and salt are the only other ingredients in this loaf. It’s a big hit around here, and I make sure to have plenty of extras on hand in the freezer. It’s not overly sweet, so you can eat it with anything. But if you’re feeling indulgent, slice this loaf thickly and make it into french toast.

Always on offer is my house sourdough, made with 25% freshly-milled grains. If you’re looking for a bread that can do it all, this is it. Toast, bruschetta, sandwiches, strata/egg bake – you name it, and this crusty sourdough will fit the bill! These are good-sized loaves that can feed a family.

Orders are back to usual this week with Thursday and Friday pickups at my home (March 21-22) and Thursday pickups (March 21) at Hillsdale College. Orders are open from now until Tuesday, March 19th. 

First, a reminder that orders for next week will only be available on Friday, March 15th. I will still deliver to the college, and orders can be picked up at my home. If you are a Thursday subscriber, everything will be the same for pickup except the day. Please let me know if you have any questions, or if this will cause a problem for you for pickup. Thank you for being understanding!

When I can, I like to bake and cook seasonally. Winter has me craving hearty, stick-to-your-ribs foods, while summer is filled with garden salads and grilled everything! Morning glory muffins, available to order this coming week, feel like an exception. They are equally at home in any season! These beauties are made with sourdough starter for extra flavor, along with dried cherries, pumpkin seeds, coconut, walnuts, apple,freshly-milled whole wheat flour, and spices. I like so many things about these muffins, but I especially like that they are satisfying without too much sweet. They make for a great grab-and-go breakfast or snack, or a lovely addition to a brunch. Each order will contain 4 muffins. These should freeze well, so stock some away for another day!

My house sourdough is available every week – this is another good one with which to stock your freezer. When I thaw bread, I prefer to do that in the oven. I run the loaf under some water, then bake it at 300 for about 30 minutes, or until it’s (mostly) thawed. It can also just be thawed overnight, but I’ve found that the texture is better and closer to fresh-baked when I thaw loaves in the oven. 

Orders can be placed on hillsdalehearth.com/shop until Tuesday evening, March 12th, and pickup will just be on Friday, March 15th this week. Payment is by cash, check, or cashapp on pickup, or by credit card on the website.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if the Friday pickup poses a problem for you. I will be happy to work with you however I can!

This week I’m making a bread for you that was standard fare in Germany. A dark, heavy sourdough rye bread. If you’ve not had this kind of bread before, you’re in for a new experience. It’s not light, like a deli rye, but it has some of those flavors. Rye has a kind of earthy flavor, and if you pair it with some bright and briny flavors.

Try it topped with cream cheese and smoked salmon, and maybe some capers. Or even with a tart jam and salted butter. Or dip it in a big bowl of split pea soup with ham. Let me know how you’re going to try it this week!

Always available is my house sourdough, which goes like hotcakes when a fresh loaf comes to the table. If we ever have ends leftover, I like to let them dry out and then toss them in the food processor for bread crumbs!

Orders will be open until Tuesday of next week, and ready for pickup on either Thursday or Friday, March 7-8. 

We’ve been seeing Robins and Finches in our backyard recently, and are filling the birdfeeder more than we have all winter. When we left Wisconsin, dear friends gave us a clear feeder that attaches to a window. We love watching all the different birds up close as they vie with each other for the perch on the feeder! These signs of spring seem to boost everyone’s mood.

March is around the corner and that means another month of bread subscriptions! I have a mix of new-to-me bakes and favorites for you this month. And, as always, a special treat for subscribers 🙂 Here’s the bake-of-the-week rundown:

February 29 – March 1: Sourdough bagels

March 7-8: Sourdough Rye (90% rye)

March 15: Morning Glory Muffins

March 21-22: Maple Spelt Sourdough

March 28-29: Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

Please note: the third week, March 15th, will be a Friday pickup only. 

Sourdough bagels are a huge hit around here. As with all my sourdough items, I don’t add any commercial yeast but let the natural leavening do its work! I make these plain, but there’s nothing plain about them. Great with a fried egg, or sliced and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar these are delicious any way you choose!

The rye bread in the second week is a dark, dense loaf which will improve over the first few days if you can wait that long to cut into it. Morning glory muffins are chock full of all sorts of seeds, nuts, and dried fruit. Just sweet enough for a great start to the day. Maple spelt sourdough is a bread list favorite – local maple syrup and freshly milled spelt make for one of the best breads I’ve eaten. And naturally leavened hot cross buns are a Holy Week tradition!

I’ll also have a monthly subscription for my house sourdough, a great addition to any meal at any time of day. If you’re hesitant to try sourdough bread, or have had bad tasting ones in the past, give mine a try. If you don’t like it I’ll make you something else, on the house 🙂

House sourdough subscriptions and bake of the week subscriptions are available to order now on hillsdalehearth.com. Orders are also open for individual orders of house sourdough and sourdough bagels for this coming week. All monthly subscribers will receive a special baked item in the first week of the month. This month I’m making an old, old family recipe: a German kuchen from my great grandmother. Kuchen is like a coffee cake, but not the fluffy iced kind in a box. Real fruit, real butter, handmade, passed down for generations!

Orders will be open for March subscriptions as well as house sourdough and sourdough bagels until Tuesday, February 27th, with the first March orders going out Thursday and Friday, February 29th and March 1st. 

The sunshine and warm weather last week has had me turning my sights toward spring and outdoor projects. We (mostly my husband) are building a chicken tractor in the garage this month – a moveable coop and run together – as we plan to have a few birds in the backyard come summer. Any suggestions on favorite (or least favorite!) breeds are welcome! We’re also planning out fruit trees and a vegetable garden, now with much more space than we’ve had in the past, and also with growing children who can lend a hand.

When the thermometer plunged this week, as it always does in February, I found myself thinking of spring flavors. For me, there are few sweet combinations better than lemon and blueberry to welcome in spring. It’s like sunshine in baked form, somehow. This week, I’m baking lemon blueberry scones: tender and lemony, packed with blueberries, and topped with a lemon drizzle. When the gray days start to feel unending, a little bit of sunshine goes a long way.

Available every week is my house sourdough, with freshly milled flour. I usually get my whole grains (wheat berries) from an organic mill in Illinois that offers a great variety of grains. It’s a fun way to experiment with different flavors and see what we most enjoy! I let these sourdough loaves ferment for 24 hours, which helps with both digestibility and flavor: a win-win!

Next week, I will open March subscriptions and share with you what I’m baking in March. If you have any favorites, or special requests, be sure to let me know! Orders are generally open from Friday when you get this email until Tuesday. That gives me enough time to start the sourdough process Tuesday night for Thursday’s loaves. If you’re looking for a special gift, you can purchase loaves for friends, or a gift subscription for a month of sourdough! 

House sourdough and lemon blueberry scones will be available for pickup at my Hillsdale home on Thursday and Friday, February 22-23, and at Hillsdale College on Thursday, February 22nd. Orders for scones and sourdough will close on Tuesday, February 20th.

This week’s bread is sourdough challah. While it might be typically found in Jewish bakeries, it’s one that I’ve enjoyed making for many years. It’s a *slightly* sweet bread that is enriched with eggs and just a bit of brown sugar. This version is also naturally fermented so no added yeast at all! I love making it in part because I enjoy eating it, but in part because it’s a braided bread that can be arranged in many different ways! Sometimes I get fancy with a 5 or 6 strand loaf, or weave it into a round; other times it’s the plump 3 strand braid that wins me over. We’ve been tearing off great hunks and eating it plain this week, or slathered with butter and jam. If you’re lucky enough to have some survive for a few days, it makes outstanding french toast!

Always on tap is my house sourdough, made with freshly-milled grains and fermented for 24 hours. If you’re on the fence about sourdough, or you haven’t had one you like, give mine a try. If you don’t like it, I’ll make you something else – on the house!

Challah and house sourdough both also make wonderful hostess gifts, if you’re headed out of town or joining friends for dinner. 

I often like to plan some of our meals around the breads I’m baking. It gives me some inspiration for meals and lets me have one main part of a meal already covered. That really helps on busy days! This week, challah will be a breakfast feature – I have an egg bake on the menu that I mix up overnight and bake in the morning. Challah with butter and jam is a perfect pairing! It fills everyone up, and usually leaves us at least a few leftovers. 

Orders can be placed on hillsdalehearth.com/shop/, and are open from Fridays through Tuesdays. If I reach a limit to what I can bake, I may close orders a bit sooner so order early and often! Payment is by cash, check, or cashapp on pickup, or by credit card when you order.

Sourdough challah and house sourdough orders should be in by Tuesday, February 13th and will both be ready for pickup on Thursday, February 15th and Friday, February 16th. 

Please let me know if you have special requests, or any questions about orders or bread!

This week’s bake of the week brings a special bread, one that I usually only make around this time of year near Valentine’s Day. But whenever I make it I wonder why I don’t make it more often! I’ve made different iterations of this loaf, but this one is my favorite. The bread itself is a sourdough with 50% rye flour, bringing a deep flavor with a nutritious punch. On top of that I add dark chocolate chunks and  dried cherries, giving it sweet and tart notes. There is no added sugar in this bread; the chocolate and the cherries bring just the right amount of sweetness to keep it interesting without simply tasting like sugar. I like that this bread is good at any time of day – it feels indulgent for breakfast toast with warm, soft chocolate peeking between bright cherries and whole grain bread.

I’m also making my house sourdough with 25% freshly milled grains. This recipe is flexible and can use different grains, but these days I’m really enjoying a mix of red and white wheat with spelt! This loaf is great for everything, and we eat it in various forms every day. If you want to make it stretch, or have some around for a rainy day, try slicing half of it when you get it home and freezing it. That way, you can take out slices as you need them.

Breads can be picked up on Thursday, February 8th at Hillsdale College outside of my husband’s office, Kendall Hall 413. Orders can also be picked up at my home on Thursday and Friday afternoon, February 8th-9th. Be sure to indicate your pickup place when you order! If you need a time outside of those listed, just let me know.

Payment is by cash, check, or cashapp on pickup, or by credit card when you order at hillsdalehearth.com. Orders will be open online from now until Tuesday evening, February 6th.