Nourish Farms hosts hands-on sourdough class in Sheboygan Falls Jan. 15

Home bakers in Sheboygan Falls got practical, hands-on sourdough training at Nourish Farms’ Good Food Education Center on Jan. 15, a session designed to move students beyond recipes and into technique. The adult cooking class, titled "Sourdough Bread Making with Hopefully Homesteading," ran from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. and focused on bread fundamentals that make daily baking more reliable.

Amanda Strojinc led the class through the building blocks of a dependable sourdough: autolyse, mixing, dough strengthening via stretch-and-folds, starter creation, and finishing techniques for baking and scoring. Instructors demonstrated how a short autolyse relaxes the dough and improves gluten development, why stretch-and-folds replace heavy kneading for many home bakers, and how scoring patterns affect oven spring and final crumb. The session balanced technique demos with hands-on practice so participants could feel and assess dough structure in real time.

Practical takeaways were baked into the event. Each participant left with a partially fermented loaf and a live starter to take home, providing both an immediate project and the germ of an ongoing practice. That combination lets new bakers complete the bake at home and continue cultivating a starter without starting from scratch. Pre-registration was required for the class, reflecting limited space for close guidance and one-on-one feedback during the 2.5-hour session.

For community members, the class provided more than a single bake. It created a shared language around common sourdough steps, autolyse, bulk fermentation, stretch-and-folds, shaping, proofing, and scoring, so neighbors can swap tips using the same terms and techniques. The workshop format also offered troubleshooting opportunities that recipe reading often misses: handling slack dough, timing lifts between folds, and recognizing when a loaf is ready for the oven.

The session reinforced a key advantage of hands-on classes: immediate, sensory feedback. Students could see the difference a well-executed autolyse makes in dough texture and test scoring strokes on demo loaves before cutting into their own. Taking a starter home supports long-term learning; regular feedings at home let bakers observe how their starter responds to local flour and kitchen temperatures.

As sourdough remains a staple of home baking culture, local classes like this help bakers turn occasional successes into repeatable routines. For anyone who picked up a starter at the event, the next step is routine maintenance and planning a bake window to finish that partially fermented loaf.