Welcome

How a loaf is born

Hi! I'm Megan. I bake bread here in Arizona, and I want to show you how a loaf gets made. It takes two whole days, four ingredients, and one tiny living thing in a jar.

↓Scroll to begin · 9 short scenes

Made by Megan at Dough Mama. Reading time: about three minutes. Skip to the menu.

Step 1

Meet Bubbles

This jar holds my starter. I call her Bubbles. She's just flour and water, but tiny wild yeasts live inside her, and every day I give her a spoon of fresh flour to eat. A few hours later she puffs up to twice her size, telling me she's ready to work.

Wild yeast floats in the air and sleeps on every grain of flour, waiting for water.

Try at home: Pick a name for your own starter before you ever make one. Bakers have called theirs everything from Doughy to Fred.

Step 2

Four things, that's all

Time to mix the dough. I use four ingredients, and only four: flour, water, salt, and a scoop of Bubbles. No yeast packets, no sugar, no shortcuts. The starter does the rising.

Sourdough is one of the oldest recipes humans still make. Around 6,000 years old.

Step 4

Stretch, don't pound

Lots of bread gets kneaded hard. I don't do that. Every half hour I lift one side of the dough, stretch it up, and fold it over. Soft and slow, like a stretchy band waking up. That builds the strength that traps all the bubbles later.

Try at home: Pull a piece of warm pizza dough. Notice how it stretches without ripping? That's gluten. You're feeling it work.

Step 5

The big nap

Now the dough takes a nap. No, really. It sits on the counter for four or five hours, doubling in size while Bubbles fills it with air. If you cut it open you'd see a whole sky of tiny pockets.

Those bubbles are carbon dioxide, the same gas you breathe out.

Step 6

Round it up

When the nap is done, I tip the dough onto the counter and gently roll it into a tight ball. Bakers call that shape a boule. It's a French word, and it just means ball.

Step 7

The cold sleep

The boule goes in the fridge overnight. Cold slows everything way down, and while it rests it grows the deep, tangy flavor sourdough is famous for. Patient bread tastes better. I promise.

12 hours in the cold can build more flavor than 12 hours on the counter.

Step 8

Sign the loaf

Right before it goes in the oven, I draw a quick pattern across the top with a sharp little blade. That cut tells the loaf where to open up, and it leaves a signature only this bread will have.

Try at home: Bakers call the cuts an ear. Each one is different, like a snowflake.

Step 9

Into the oven

The loaf goes into a screaming-hot Dutch oven, lid on, full of its own steam. About 45 minutes later it comes out gold, blistered, and at least an inch taller than it went in.

The steam is what gives sourdough its shiny, glassy crust.

The finish

It sings!

When the loaf comes out and starts to cool, lean in close. You'll hear it. Tiny crackles all over the crust, like a quiet little song. Bakers call that the bread singing. Then we slice it, and we eat it warm.

Try at home: Next time you're near fresh bread cooling on a rack, put your ear close. If it's a good loaf, it's singing to you.

That's the whole thing

Now you know how it's made.
Want to taste it?

Every loaf on the menu was made the way you just read about. Pre-order and pick yours up still-warm.

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