Colorado sourdough instructor turns baking lessons into private workshops

Kam Fletcher has turned sourdough into a lesson, a service and, for many Colorado Springs households, a lower-pressure way to learn bread that actually works. In a June 4 FOX21 segment on Loving Living Local, the Colorado Springs-area instructor behind The Haphazard Sourdough Baker showed how her classes are built less like a bakery demo and more like a private workshop, with lessons that can happen in customers’ homes or at neutral locations for an added fee.

That setup is part of Fletcher’s appeal. Her adult classes require a minimum of four people, while kids’ classes need five participants, which keeps the experience small enough to feel hands-on and personal. The structure also fits the way she talks about the business on her own site, where she describes the classes as “fun, approachable, and a little bit haphazard,” with a goal of helping people understand “the why behind the process.” Fletcher does not sell bread; she teaches people to make it themselves.

The core adult and family offerings are the Basic Sourdough Cinnamon Twist and Basic Sourdough Whole Wheat Loaf. Each runs about 1 3/4 hours, and Fletcher says both have been made from sea level up to 9,500 feet with no recipe adjustments, a detail that matters in Colorado, where altitude can turn a decent home bake into a frustration fast. Her kids’ classes are always hosted in the customer’s home and require one adult helper. Those sessions can include pizza, cinnamon twists, soft pretzels or pop tarts built with natural sourdough starter.

Fletcher’s pitch is practical as much as it is social. She said that once people learn to make sourdough from scratch, the economics change, with a loaf costing about $4 at home compared with as much as $13 at the grocery store. That kind of math lands in a year when sourdough remains unusually sticky in the home baking world, with King Arthur Baking treating it as a mainstream category that reaches beyond bread into pretzels and pizza crust, and Bake Magazine noting a 3X resurgence in sourdough searches.

The teaching model also fits the rules of local small business life. Colorado Springs requires a home occupation permit for certain home-based businesses, which puts Fletcher’s in-home lessons inside the city’s broader regulatory frame. The Haphazard Sourdough Baker was filed in Colorado on October 21, 2022, and Fletcher’s menu has grown beyond the basics to biscuits, baguettes, waffles and pizza. For bakers who want more than a recipe link, her classes make sourdough feel less mysterious and a lot more repeatable.