Leaven & Life: How Kendra’s Microbakery Rises with Her Family

You know that smell of bread that makes you stop in your tracks? For Kendra it started in a tiny  cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains. A friend walked in and said, “Your house smells just like my  grandma’s, like fresh bread.” She laughed it off at the time. She was delivering microgreens to  fancy restaurants, not kneading dough. But scents linger. Years later that memory would rise  again when she mixed flour and water and let it rest overnight, a step bakers call autolyse.  Autolyse is when gluten begins to form and a dough wakes up. It’s also a perfect metaphor for  the pause between lives: the years Kendra spent running a small landscape design business and  the quiet season when she started homeschooling her children. During that pause her own  passion was forming. 

Autolyse & Awakening 

In 2013 Kendra spent her days driving around the Bay Area delivering microgreens. One of her  delivery stops sat across the street from Tartine Bakery. She began timing her lunch break so  she could slip into Tartine for a croissant or a loaf. “It was mind-blowing,” she told me with a  smile. At the time she didn’t think about what made that bread different from the yeasted loaves  her grandmother taught her. She just knew she loved it. The idea that bread could be alive, that it  could be nourished by wild yeast and develop complex flavors over days instead of hours, didn’t  enter her mind.

“I knew I could get so much  more benefit from using a naturally fermented process,”

Fast-forward to 2021. Kendra was living in Camas, homeschooling her kids and watching a close  friend across the street pull bubbling sourdough out of the oven every week for pizza night. The  smell brought her back to that cabin. She began mixing the dough again. At first, she leaned on the  yeasted recipes she knew: whole-wheat sandwich loaves, buns for family meals. She cultivated a  friend’s starter for pancakes and biscuits but was hesitant to commit. Then one day she scraped  the instant yeast into the compost and went all in on fermentation. “I knew I could get so much  more benefit from using a naturally fermented process,” she said. In sourdough you call the  portion of starter you fold into your dough levain. Levain is like an invitation to ferment. Kendra  built hers and never looked back. 

Levain & Love: When a Hobby Became a Calling 

There’s something about fermenting bread that attracts people who love to grow things. Kendra  has always fallen hard for plants and herbs, and for a few years she turned that into a landscape  business. But as she smiled and told me, you can only be in one garden at a time. Landscaping  didn’t work once she started homeschooling. Baking did. She mixed loaf after loaf, sometimes  dozens in a week, just to practice. She couldn’t stand to waste bread, so she started knocking on  neighbors’ doors with gifts. It was a way to meet people and share something she was proud of.  One friend told her about a mom in San Diego who sold sourdough at school pickup and encouraged her to try. “Our bread is even better,” the friend joked. That line, delivered  half-laughing over coffee, gave her the confidence to sell.

The first time a stranger came up the driveway, she admits she was nervous. “The house  wasn’t finished. I worried they’d judge us,”  

Kendra opened the door and the community walked through. The first sale wasn’t glamorous; it  was her neighbor handing cash across the fence. She quickly set up a Google Form for orders but  was soon overwhelmed by texts. Then she saw a fellow microbaker online using a text-based  sign-up and pick-up system. Within weeks she had her own version. People join once and get  weekly menus via text. They reply to reserve a loaf, then pick up from the shelf on her front  porch. The first time a stranger came up the driveway, she admits she was nervous. “The house  wasn’t finished. I worried they’d judge us,” she says. Instead, the couple told her how delicious  the bread was and invited her family to their church. That porch has been a gathering place ever  since.

Bulk Ferment: A Week in the Life

If you’ve never made sourdough, the bulk ferment is when your dough slowly rises at room  temperature. In Kendra’s world it’s also the main fermentation of her week. She splits her work  into three days – prep, dough and bake – and each is as hands-on as the last. 

On Prep Day she makes all the “extras”: scones and cookies, browning butter, premeasuring, preparing levain. She  calls this “feeding the sweet tooth of the neighborhood.” It’s also when she feeds her starter. By  the end of the day there are two big tubs of bubbly levain waiting on the counter. On Dough Day she mixes flour, water and levain from dawn until lunch. She works by feel now, not by strict  measurements. After lunch she shapes loaves and lets them finish bulk fermenting (BF) for a couple more hours, depending on temperature. Total BF time is 5-9 hours from the start of mixing. Each loaf then goes into a banneton and into one of several  refrigerators for a long cold proof, at least 24 hours and sometimes up to 72. Cold proofing  slows fermentation, deepening flavor. It’s also a lot like patience in business: everything good  takes time.

Anyone can bake bread,” she told me, “But turning it  into a business that feeds your soul and your family takes intention.”

Bake Day comes early. In market season she’s up at 3:30 a.m. In the calmer months she might  start at seven. She can bake 48 loaves in a quiet week or 200 for the Camas Plant & Garden Fair.  She used to mix every batch by hand and nearly burned out. After one particularly stressful week  she invested in a commercial mixer and adopted a motto she learned from The Breadwinner  Podcast: build a burnout-proof bakery. “Anyone can bake bread,” she told me, “But turning it  into a business that feeds your soul and your family takes intention.” She listens to that podcast  between mixing and shaping. She also joined webinars on pricing, scheduling and sourcing. She  smiles when she talks about spreadsheets and fermentation schedules in the same sentence.  That’s the alchemy of running a microbakery.

Scoring the Crust: Crafting Flavor & Community 

Bakers score their loaves by slashing the surface before baking. The cuts let the dough expand  and create those beautiful patterns. Kendra sees scoring as a way to control chaos. Her  community is part of that pattern too. The porch pick-up system works for her family and for  customers because it’s clear, consistent and personal. She closes pre-orders when her schedule fills so she never has to choose between another loaf and dinner with her kids. When she does set  extra loaves out, neighbors chat, kids play and the occasional chicken wanders through. Her boys  help clean the porch and carry bins. They haven’t joined her in the kitchen yet, food safety rules, but they carve wooden spatulas and stir her starter. Their favorite loaf? Jalapeño cheddar,  especially for grilled cheese.

The community extends beyond her porch. Kendra offers Demystify Sourdough Beginners  Classes to share what she has learned. The next session is scheduled for March 7th,  9 a.m. – 12 p.m. at Get To Gather Farm and sold out almost immediately. Participants will learn  every step of the process and take home a starter and a loaf. When I asked her about it, she  laughed softly. “I can’t believe how fast it filled,” she said. “Stay tuned for more spring classes;  if there’s enough demand, I’d love to offer another one in April.” Her classes are a chance to  shorten the learning curve that took her years.

Cold Proof: Patience & Plans 

Cold proofing is that final rest in the refrigerator when the dough develops deep flavor. It’s also a  good analogy for Kendra’s future – slow, steady and guided by taste rather than timelines. When  I asked her where she sees Bakehouse Sourdough going, she didn’t pull out a five-year plan. She smiled, looked out at her garden and said, “We’re going with the dough.” She joked that bread  doesn’t do well on a timeline; sometimes you adjust fermentation because the weather changes.  It’s the same with her business. She’s sketching a daylight basement that would house a bigger  oven and maybe a helper. She dreams of offering bread to local restaurants and grocery stores,  but only if it fits her family. “I want to keep the smell of bread in our home,” she said. “I also  want to be outside planting more herbs.” She loves shaping land as much as she loves shaping  

dough. There are plans for a third garden terrace and maybe a small orchard. As she told me this, her  voice was calm and warm. Even her jokes, like calling her mixer her “wonderful friend”, were  delivered with a gentle smile.

Pairings & Traditions: Enjoying Sourdough

If you’re new to sourdough, think of it as the jeans of bread: it goes with almost everything.  Kendra’s rosemary loaf pairs beautifully with a bowl of soup or a frittata. Her jalapeño cheddar  makes the best grilled cheese you’ll ever taste. The cinnamon rolls she sells at Christmas become  part of breakfast traditions. Leftover sourdough makes killer French toast or croutons. Because  the dough ferments for so long, sourdough tends to be easier on the stomach; you stay full longer  and your gut thanks you. Kendra also likes to slice a plain loaf, toast it and top it with butter and  seasonal jam, a simple pleasure. She says her bread is best eaten the day you pick it up, but it  freezes well. And if you have extra, turn it into breadcrumbs and sprinkle them over pasta.

Sourdough terms can sound intimidating, but each one tells part of the story. Autolyse is rest;  levain is invitation; bulk ferment is growth; scoring is artistry; proof is patience. Kendra  embodies all of these: she rested and listened to her family, invited wild yeast into her kitchen,  grew a business slowly, crafted beauty and flavor and is patient about what comes next. Her calm voice, subtle humor and steady hands make 3 a.m. baking sound like a meditation rather than a  chore.

Kendra’s Quick Picks: A playful “This or That” 

Before I left her kitchen, I asked Kendra to pick between some bread-centric dilemmas. Her answers were quick and revealing: 

• Crunchy crust or tender crumb? She grinned and chose crust. “Give me blistered and  caramelised every time.” 

• Overproofed or underproofed? Overproofed. She’d rather a loaf be airy than dense and  sad. 

• Ugly but delicious or pretty but bland? Ugly but delicious. She wants you to taste the  love, not just see the Instagram photo. 

• Losing your starter or burning a batch? Burn the batch. Starters are family; a burnt  loaf is just part of the learning curve. 

• Starting over or saving a bad dough? Start over. Sometimes you have to let go and  begin anew. 

• Baking tired or baking stressed? Tired. Stress has no place in the kitchen.

• Instinct or recipe? Instinct. Her hands know the dough better than any written formula.

• One more batch or family time? Family time. She closes orders when her schedule  fills; her boys always come first. 

• Selling out early or disappointing someone who shows up late? Sell out. It’s a good  problem to have. 

• Keeping it small or growing fast? Small and steady. 

• Bread as business or bread as calling? Both. It pays the bills and fills the soul.

• For the kids or for the community? For the kids. Family is her first community;  everything else grows from there.

If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to build something that rises with your family,  Kendra’s story shows you don’t need a grand plan. You need curiosity, patience and a  willingness to let things ferment. Start with flour and water. Find your levain. Trust your hands.  And maybe, just maybe, you’ll wake up one day and hear someone say, “Your house smells like  my grandma’s.”

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This is where you can find her

Kendra Hofseth

Bakehouse Sourdough: https://www.instagram.com/bakehouse_sourdough/

Order Here: https://bakehousesourdough.squarespace.com/

📍Washougal, Washington