our sourdough journey – The Shaver Crew

If you follow me on social media, you’ve probably noticed I’ve talked about making sourdough. It’s one of those things I’ve watched others do for a couple years and have desired to start doing myself. But, truthfully, it seemed complicated and it intimidated me.

But one day, my library friend brought freshly made sourdough bagels she had made that morning and I was undone. They were so delicious and literally dreamed of having them again.

We chatted the following weeks about sourdough, my dream to start but lack of trust in myself to be successful and her sweet encouragement that it was easy to catch onto. She also mentioned that it could be something to sell to raise money for our adoption. “YES! I had actually considered that…”

Now with fresh motivation, she offered me some of her starter (probably the most intimidating part to me because I’d seen numerous instagram stories of other people failing after days of investing into their starter). She brought her kiddos over to play and gifted me one cup of her starter. She patiently educated me on the basics of sourdough starter and I slowly began to breathe.

A couple nights later, after many texts to my library friend and some time spent on Pinterest, I decided to try my hand at sourdough bagels. I found a recipe that seemed pretty easy so I gave it a shot. They turned out delicious!

I made a bunch and offered it up on Facebook. Some friends bought it and raved that they were delicious.

Next on my list to try was bread. My library friend had pointed me to an Instagram account that had a sourdough bread highlight which I followed and wrote down the recipe so I could easily follow it. One morning I decided to give it a try and made a horrendous mistake that is hilarious so I’ll share it with you.

The Instagram account measured everything by grams, so I had convert it through Google. When we got to “salt,” the internet told me 1/4 cup. That seemed excessive, but I was determined to follow the recipe so I blindly did so. Well, I made my first bread and it turned out terrible. The salt was overpowering and I honestly spit it out and tossed the whole thing! hahaha. I asked Google again (but worded it differently) and it came back with “1 tsp of salt.” That seemed more accurate. Needless to say, that batch turned out much better but now I have a humorous baking story ;P

Now that it was perfected, it was something I offered to make for others.

I took preorders (eventually making a Google Form to help myself keep track of who wanted what) and delivered most of them. That turned out to be way too much for me and caused a lot of stress on my end. But I didn’t know how else to get it to people….

Then one Sunday at church, I was asked by a couple if I’d consider being a booth at our town’s first ever Farmer’s Market. I said I’d think about it but I really didn’t feel qualified. But they were persistent and I kept feeling little nudges from the Holy Spirit to do it. I ended up taking the dive – got my food handlers permit and successfully had my first day selling bread / bagels at the farmer’s market (more on that in another blog post 😉 ).