Sourdough goodness at Pass the Bread

Sarah Thacker is a recent bread baker, but her skill at creating artesan loaves of sourdough is a hit in the Fergus Falls, MN area. Her business, Pass the Bread, is an at-home cottage food industry business started during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order.

She is an Otter Tail County Public Health nurse who taught herself how to bake bread. Everything she knows about the process she learned by watching YouTube and Instagram videos and by reading, she said.

Try, try again

“Typically, as a cook, I try something once and if it doesn’t turn out, I never try it again,” she added. “My friend, who is the best self-taught cook that I know, tries things again and again until she masters it. She inspired me to not give up. I felt that I had time on my hands to master something and I chose sourdough because it seemed challenging.”

Armed with her new knowledge via blogs and videos, Sarah purchased her supplies on Amazon and began baking. And, with time on her hands due to the stay-at-home orders, she set out to master a new skill.

“I made my first loaf in April (2020),” she said. “It took many tries until I got the rise I was looking for, but even the early loaves were edible or could be made into croutons. Once I started baking bread, I couldn’t stop.”

She had a nice active sourdough starter on her counter and it compelled her to bake.

Friends and family encouraged her to sell it and, in October, she got a cottage bakery license and was ready to start.

The Grandmas would be proud

“When I was contemplating selling my sourdough, I started tossing around names,” she said. “Sarah’s Sourdough? It worked, but wasn’t really inspiring. Then I thought of Pass the Bread. It was perfect for many reasons. First of all, because I like to give away my bread. I also have a really long table that seats 20 people and a perfect night for me is a table full of friends and family, eating, telling stories and passing the bread.”

The clincher for Sarah, though, was remembering her grandmothers. Both of them had large families and were known for feeding crowds. Her Grandma Viola’s last words as she was drifting off to heaven were, “Where’s the loaf of bread?”

The name, Pass the Bread, is in honor of her, Sarah said.

“It’s tradition in the sourdough world to name your starter, which you tend to every day and gives life to the flour, water and salt,” she said. “I named my starter after my other grandma, Catherine. I wish I could share a loaf with them now. I think they would be pleased.”

The fun thing about making sourdough bread, is how amazing three simple ingredients can taste, she added. It’s only water, flour and salt. She doesn’t add yeast. The process starts 48 hours before a loaf gets into a customer’s hands.

First, she gets the starter ready which is flour and water. The next day she makes the dough.

“It is not very time consuming, but it does require attention,” she said.

She shapes the dough which spends at least 12 more hours fermenting in the fridge. While her bread is not gluten-free, many people who have trouble tolerating gluten.

Sourdough isn’t the only thing she bakes, but it certainly is a mainstay of her business. She also makes a special loaf of the month. One month it was cranberry walnut sourdough. And her bread was one of the local foods featured in our Local Growers Meal. It was flavorful and a delight!

She sells whole loaves, bread bowl size and English muffins. She calls the sourdough a hearty winter bread.

Her family gets an extra delight with her sourdough creativity. Husband Dave (they have been married for 25 years) and five kids (four boys and one girl) live on what she calls an urban “farm” in the middle of town wtih dogs, cats and chickens to care for. The family enjoys such delights as sourdough pancakes, sourdough waffles and sourdough for their pizza crust.

The family loves the additional sourdough goodness, she said. she would sell it, but she isn’t sure how to instruct people to use it as the sourdough is a wet dough.

She accepts orders for her sourdough loaves and English muffins via the Pass the Bread Facebook page and Instagram.

Sarah Thacker’s Pass the Bread is another example of a cottage food business thriving in Minnesota.