Gluten-Free Bread Is Built on Guesswork (For Now)

If you've ever followed a gluten free bread recipe exactly and still ended up with something gummy, dense, or structurally confused, I want to offer you some relief: it's probably not your fault.

Here's something worth saying out loud: GF baking is a young field. The science, the technique, the accumulated knowledge that conventional baking has built over centuries… GF bread doesn't have that yet. Wheat baking has generations of iteration behind it. GF baking is still in its first few decades of serious development, and a lot of that development has happened in home kitchens and small bakeries by people who needed to eat safe food and figured things out as they went. That matters. It means the knowledge base is real and hard-won, and it also means there are still significant gaps.

GF bread recipes are, in large part, built on intuition and iteration rather than principle. People find something that works and they write it down. That's not a flaw, that's how early-stage knowledge gets built. But "works" and "works because of a sound understanding of what each ingredient is doing" are very different things. And when you're troubleshooting a failure, only one of those is actually useful to you.

I've been spending a lot of time lately reverse-engineering GF sourdough recipes, building a spreadsheet that tracks every ingredient by its functional properties, hydration absorption, protein content, and how often it appears across formulas. What I'm finding is a field that has made real progress through trial and error, but is still largely learning as it goes. And a lot of what it's converged on so far is oat flour, sorghum, and tapioca starch. Not necessarily because those are the optimal choices, but because they've been iterated on enough that they work.

That's not a criticism. It's a starting point. And it's exactly the kind of starting point worth examining.

Starches Have Jobs

Here's the thing about starches: they are not interchangeable. Not even close. Tapioca, potato, white rice, and cornstarch all behave differently under heat, under fermentation, and under the mechanical stress of shaping. Using them interchangeably is like swapping bread flour for cake flour and wondering why your loaf didn't have any structure.

Tapioca starch is elastic and stretchy. It helps hold a dough together under fermentation pressure and contributes to chew in the final crumb. It's doing structural work.

Potato starch gelatinizes at a lower temperature and creates a soft, tender crumb. It's fluffy. It's great in yeasted breads where you want lift and lightness. But it's not a structural ingredient in the way tapioca is, and using it in a sourdough where you need the dough to hold tension through a long ferment may actually be working against you.

White rice flour is mild and relatively neutral, but it has active amylase enzymes that will degrade starches over extended fermentation -- which is exactly the environment you're creating in a sourdough. Heat treating rice flour before use stabilizes it. Most recipes don't tell you that.

Psyllium husk powder is not really a starch at all. It's a binder and structural component. It absorbs water aggressively and creates the scaffolding that holds CO2 during fermentation. Too little and your dough won't hold gas. Too much and you get gumminess. It has a pretty narrow functional window.

Oat flour is a nutty, sweet, and almost milky tasting flour. As anyone who has eaten anything with oats knows, it’s got its own distinct flavor. Oat flour is high in protein and is fairly elastic, which makes it a great addition to breadmaking with alternative grains. It’s one of the more studied alternative grains, which means there’s a lot more readily available recipes that are easily replicable with it. It’s higher in absorption capacity, which means it can lend to a drier crumb if your hydration is on the lower side.

Sorghum flour is another common grain in alternative breadmaking. Like oat flour, it’s got a higher protein content. This helps, along with binders like psyllium husk, to trap CO2 during fermentation. That CO2 is vital to creating a light, airy bread. It’s not as elastic as oat flour, but it’s closer in flavor to wheat. Sweet yet earthy.

The point is: every ingredient in a GF bread formula has a job. When you understand the job, you can troubleshoot. When you don't, you're just hoping.

The Fermentation Problem

Most GF sourdough recipes use an enormous amount of starter. Like, a lot. And I've been sitting with a question: is that actually necessary, or is it a compensation strategy?

This is one of the places where I think GF baking is still catching up. In conventional sourdough, there's a well-established body of knowledge around inoculation rates, fermentation timelines, and how those variables interact with dough structure. That knowledge took decades to develop. GF sourdough is working from a much thinner foundation, and in the absence of established principle, more tends to feel safer than less.

Here's my working theory. If your dough structure isn't built to capture and hold CO2 efficiently, more fermentation isn't going to fix that. More CO2 production past the point your structure can hold just means collapse, or degradation of the starch matrix you're relying on to replace gluten. Starch is structure. It's not gluten, and it's not psyllium, but it is load-bearing. And running aggressive fermentation through a starch-dependent dough risks breaking down the very thing holding it together.

The same principles of fermentation that apply to wheat bread still apply here. Yeast multiplies at the same rate. CO2 is CO2. The question is whether your structure can capture what you're producing.

I think a lower inoculation rate with a longer, slower ferment (and a well-built dough structure going in) might actually perform better than the high-starter approach most recipes use. That's one of the things I'm planning to test once my sorghum starter is established and my flours arrive this week.

What The Recipe Data Actually Shows

Across the sourdough recipes I've analyzed so far, hydration in the final dough ranges from about 103% to 145%. That's a huge spread. But it doesn't feel crazy to me. Wheat bread hydration varies by about the same proportion, just for different reasons. In wheat, hydration tracks with protein content and desired crumb structure. In GF bread, hydration varies because every flour blend has a different absorption profile. You're essentially re-engineering the matrix every time you change your flour combination.

What I'm also noticing is that certain ingredients only show up in starters or sponges, not in the final dough. That matters. An ingredient acting as a fermentation substrate is doing a completely different job than an ingredient acting as a structural component. Recipes don't always make that distinction clear. Part of that is because the field is still developing the language and framework to make those distinctions. The knowledge exists in pieces. It just hasn't been systematized yet.

The oat/sorghum combination shows up consistently across formulas, usually with a tapioca component. My read is that oat and sorghum are gravitating to the top because they're the closest GF analogs to wheat in terms of protein content and flavor. People are pattern-matching, consciously or not. Whether that pairing is genuinely optimal or just well-iterated is one of the questions I'm trying to answer.

Why This Matters For You

If your GF bread keeps failing, the answer is probably not "follow the recipe more carefully." It's more likely that you don't yet have a clear picture of what each ingredient is supposed to be doing, which means you can't diagnose what went wrong. And honestly, that's not entirely on you. The recipes themselves often don't explain it either, because the field is still working that out. In a lot of ways, professionals don’t even fully know. That’s kind of why this entire sphere of the baking ecosystem is so fascinating to me.

Dense crumb might mean your structure couldn't capture fermentation gases… But that could be a psyllium issue, a starch issue, a fermentation issue, or a shaping issue. Gumminess is often excess tapioca or psyllium past their functional threshold, or underbaking, or both. A dough that spreads instead of holding its shape is a structure problem, not a hydration problem, though hydration can make it worse.

GF baking is going to keep getting better. The knowledge is accumulating. The goal of everything I'm building with Breaducated is to be part of that accumulation: to help close the gap between what we know and what we can actually teach. Not better recipes. A better understanding of why the recipe works, so you can fix it when it doesn't.

More to come as the R&D gets underway. I’ll be starting a couple GF starters this week. I’ll keep you posted on my journey.

Gluten Free Flour Isn't a Substitute. It's a System.

I've been making bread for a long time. And for most of that time, gluten free bread existed in my peripheral vision as something other people dealt with. A workaround. A consolation prize for people who couldn't have the real thing.

I was wrong about that. And reading Aran Goyoaga's The Art of Gluten Free Bread is making me understand exactly how wrong.

In wheat bread, flour is almost a background variable. You choose your protein level, develop your gluten, and the network takes care of structure, gas retention, and extensibility almost automatically. Flour is the medium. Gluten is doing the work.

In GF baking there is no gluten. Which means every single flour in your blend has to be there for a reason.

Goyoaga breaks down GF flours across three properties: protein content, hydration capacity, and flavor profile. That framework sounds straightforward until you sit with it. One flour in your blend might be contributing elasticity. Another is setting the crumb during baking. Another is pulling moisture so the loaf doesn't come out gummy and dense. Another is a neutral carrier that lets the other flours do their jobs without competing. None of them are just flour. Every ingredient is a legitimate structural choice. Not just a flavor note, but a decision about whether what comes out of the oven is actually bread or just a faint echo of it.

That's a completely different way of thinking about an ingredient list.

In wheat baking I was trained to think about bread as a system; fermentation, hydration, structure, and time all working together. I thought I'd be translating that system into a new context when I started researching GF bread. What I'm finding instead is that the system is the same but every single tool is different, and most of those tools are barely understood at the artisan level yet. I'm learning the potential of this system hasn't been fully explored yet.

And I cannot credit Goyoaga enough for her insights.

The academic research on GF baking exists but it's scattered and rarely translated into practical baker knowledge. The accumulated intuition that wheat bakers inherit from centuries of documentation just doesn't exist yet for GF bread. Goyoaga's book is genuinely the first serious attempt to build that foundation, and it's still relatively new.

Which means right now, the people paying close attention are early to something that matters.

I'm currently converting her recipes to baker's percentages and building a spreadsheet that maps each flour and starch by functional properties, wholesale cost, and sourcing viability. I'm not looking to produce her formulas, but to understand the system well enough to build my own. That's how I learned to think about bread in the first place. A recipe is a hypothesis. The ingredients are variables. And in GF baking, those variables are just starting to be understood.

I have not been this hungry for knowledge in a long time. I can't wait to have the tools to start working on my own GF breads.

Everything I Know About Baking is Wrong (…Kind of)

I’ve been a baker all my life. There are pictures of toddler me covered in brownie batter, holding a whisk, mesmerized by the process. I’ve been baking bread since I was tall enough to reach the kitchen counter for Thanksgiving dinner prep. I’ve spent years in fine dining restaurants, honing my skills and learning how to produce artisan bread and pastries at scale. You could say I know my way around a dough.

And yet… Gluten free baking is making me feel like a beginner again.

I recently started helping my friends at Flakely as they grow, and the learning curve has been equal parts frustrating and fascinating. Flakely is a 100% gluten free, celiac safe bakery. There is not a single molecule of gluten in this bakery. My instincts, the ones I've spent my entire life building, are mostly backwards here. And I want to understand why.

A New Kind of Structure

I've written about gluten before, and honestly I could keep writing about it forever. But here's the short version: gluten is a protein formed from glutenin and gliadin that comes together when flour meets water. It's what makes dough stretchy and elastic. It builds structure, traps carbon dioxide from leavening agents, and is the foundational building block in most baking. Take it out of a cookie and you have a problem. Take it out of bread, where it is quite literally the foundation, and you are playing by an entirely different set of rules.

And I mean that literally. In conventional baking, gluten is doing so much invisible work that most bakers never have to think about it. When you knead dough, you're developing gluten. When dough springs back after you poke it, that's gluten. When a loaf holds its shape during a long cold ferment, when a croissant separates into distinct flaky layers, when a bagel has that specific satisfying chew. Gluten is behind all of it. It's not just one thing. It's the whole system.

So what happens when it's gone? Something has to hold things together. Something has to trap gas, build walls, create chew. Something has to do all of that invisible work, and it has to do it without the protein that conventional baking has always relied on.

That's where it gets interesting. Gluten free baking doesn't just remove one ingredient. It dismantles the entire structural logic of baking and rebuilds it from different materials. New proteins. New starches. Ingredients I had never worked with seriously before, doing jobs I didn't fully understand yet.

I don't have all the answers yet. That's kind of the point. What I do have is a growing list of questions I'm bringing into the kitchen every day. What replaces gluten's structural role? How do ingredients interact differently when the rules change? What chemical reactions shift, and why do some things still work in ways they probably shouldn't?

Going Against the Grain (Quite Literally)

Those questions don't stay abstract for long. Every day at the bakery, I run face first into them.

The most disorienting moment so far? Making bread out of something that looks exactly like cake batter. Every part of my brain said “this is so wrong.” Bread isn't supposed to pour. It's supposed to push back. It's supposed to have tension. But gluten free bread doesn't work that way, and standing there holding a bowl of what my hands kept insisting was cake batter, I realized how deeply my instincts are wired to a specific set of rules. Rules that only exist because of gluten.

And that keeps happening. The rules I internalized aren't universal laws. They were just gluten.

What I miss most is muscle memory. In conventional baking I don't have to think about whether something is ready. I can feel it, see it, smell it. A properly proofed loaf has a specific give when you poke it. A well developed dough has a specific resistance when you stretch it. Those cues are gone here. Gluten free baked goods don't look the same when they're done. They don't feel the same. The structural integrity is completely different, and the instincts I've spent so much time sharpening just don't apply. I'm relearning how to read what's in front of me, almost from scratch.

It's frustrating sometimes. I won't pretend otherwise. There's something genuinely disorienting about being skilled at something and suddenly not being able to trust yourself.

But mostly I'm curious. What does baking look like when you remove the most foundational structural tool used across almost every category? What steps in to replace it? What can and can't be replicated? I get to investigate those questions from inside a professional kitchen, with my hands in the dough every day. That's not a bad position to be in.

And here's what's already stopped me in my tracks. Gluten free baked goods, when made thoughtfully, are much closer to their conventional counterparts than I ever expected. I've seen gluten free croissants with real, actual flaky layers. That shouldn't be possible by the logic I walked in with. But it is. And now I need to know how.

Learning With a New System

So here's what I'm doing. Over the next few posts I'm going to dig into what's actually happening inside gluten free baking, starting with the ingredients. Potato starch, rice flour, xanthan gum, psyllium husk, tapioca starch, whey protein. These are the tools doing the work that gluten used to do. I want to understand each one, what job it's performing, and how they work together to build structure without the protein that conventional baking has always relied on.

And then I want to go further. Once I understand the ingredients, I want to look at the methods. The extra yeast. The warmer liquids. The techniques that get borrowed from conventional baking and the ones that get thrown out entirely. I want to know what's actually necessary and what's just habit that nobody has questioned yet. That's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night, honestly.

Breaducated has always been about understanding baking as a system, not a set of recipes. Gluten free baking is forcing me to live that out in real time. I can't rely on what I know. I have to go back to first principles and rebuild my understanding from the ground up.

That's humbling. It's also exactly the kind of learning I find most interesting.

Not as an expert. As a professional baker who is genuinely starting over, and finding that kind of exciting. I hope you'll follow along.

How to Know When Your Sourdough Starter Is Actually Ready to Use

Can I tell you something I see all the time?

Someone cuts open a sourdough loaf, sees a tight crumb, and immediately decides they failed. They blame themselves. They blame their technique. They start questioning whether their starter is even alive.

And often, when I hear the details, the bread didn't fail. The starter just wasn't ready yet.

There's a big difference between those two things. And I think it's worth slowing down to talk about it.

The 12-Hour Rule Isn't Actually a Rule

Somewhere along the way, "feed your starter and use it after 12 hours" became gospel. I hear it constantly. I see it in comments, in tutorials, in beginner guides written with total confidence.

But here's the thing: 12 hours is a timestamp. It is not a readiness indicator.

Your starter's activity timeline depends on your kitchen temperature, the flour you used to feed it, your feed ratio, the composition of your culture, and how long you've been maintaining it. Someone writing a recipe in a warm kitchen with a young, yeast-forward starter is working with completely different variables than you are. Their 12 hours might not be your 12 hours.

When you use an immature starter, you're seeding your dough with a culture that hasn't fully done its job yet. The yeast population isn't at full strength. The fermentation hasn't produced the acids and gases that give sourdough its structure and flavor. You're asking the dough to do a lot of work with a tool that isn't quite ready.

The result is often a dense loaf. And then people think they failed.

They didn't. They just used their starter too early.

Hungry vs. Immature: Not the Same Thing

Here's something I actually find reassuring: I would rather use an over-fermented starter than an under-fermented one.

A starter that's gone past peak is hungry. The culture is strong and established. It has already done the work of building a healthy microbial population. It's burned through a lot of its available sugars and it wants fresh food, but the moment it hits new flour it tends to move quickly and with confidence.

An immature starter is a different situation. The population hasn't fully developed yet. You don't entirely know what you're working with. And that uncertainty shows up in the dough.

A mature starter, even one that's a little past its peak, is a known quantity. An immature one isn't.

I Baked This Experiment So You Could See It

I wanted to make this concrete, so I baked the same recipe twice and changed only one thing: when I used my starter.

Both loaves used all-purpose flour, 65 percent hydration, 20 percent starter. Same shaping. Same oven. Same Dutch oven setup. My starter is a spelt-forward culture that I maintain at a 1:3:3 ratio, which tends to favor lactic acid bacteria and a slower, more gradual fermentation curve. For this culture, full maturity usually happens somewhere around 20 to 24 hours post-feed.

Loaf one used starter at 11 hours. Visibly active, clearly fermenting, but short of where this particular culture needed to be. I used it early on purpose.

Loaf two used starter at around 20 hours. Past peak, technically. But fully developed.

The differences showed up before either loaf went into the oven.

The mature starter was noticeably more liquid at incorporation. Longer fermentation means more enzyme activity, which had already begun loosening the protein structure in the starter flour. The dough felt more extensible almost immediately and passed the float test within the first two hours of bulk. The loaf one dough was stiffer and moved more slowly the whole way through.

The crumbs told the same story:

Loaf One

Tight, even, dense. Beautiful crust. Great color. Good flavor, actually, because the dough itself had a long fermentation built into the process. Dense, but not a disaster. Informative.

Loaf Two

open, irregular crumb with visible gas retention throughout. Strong oven spring. More complex flavor.

Dramatically different result from the same recipe, the same hydration, and the same hands.

One variable.

Dense Bread Is Telling You Something

I want to be clear about something: density has more than one cause. Low hydration produces a tighter crumb. So does underproofing, weak gluten development, improper shaping, and too much bench flour. These are distinct issues with distinct solutions.

Immature starter is one specific cause that often gets lumped into a vague sense of overall failure.

It's also worth saying: some bakers intentionally cultivate a culture that favors lactic acid bacteria over yeast. That culture will ferment more slowly, produce a different flavor profile, and make a denser loaf than a yeast-forward starter. That is not a flaw. It is a choice. The bread it makes is not failing to be something else. It is exactly what it was designed to be.

Before you decide your bread failed, ask what it's telling you.

A dense crumb with good color, good crust, and good flavor is a loaf that worked. It just worked differently than the image you had in your head.

So How Do You Know When Your Starter Is Ready?

Stop watching the clock. Start watching the starter.

A mature starter will have visibly risen, developed bubbles throughout, and have a domed or slightly fallen top. It will smell active and tangy. A small amount dropped in water will float, or at least make its way toward the surface. The texture will have loosened from how it looked right after feeding.

These signals will look a little different depending on your culture. That's the point. Your specific microbial community has its own rhythm. Getting familiar with that rhythm, what your starter looks and smells and feels like at different stages, is more useful than any rule about hours.

This is the part of sourdough that takes practice. Not because it's complicated, but because it's observational. You're learning to read something that's alive.

And that, honestly, is one of my favorite things about it.

Dense bread isn't a failure. It's a starting point for a better question.

Want to know more about what’s happening in your sourdough starter? Check out the Science of Sourdough Starters

What Makes a Croissant Good?

Croissants are often judged by how dramatic they look.

Tall layers. Huge honeycomb crumb. A cross section that opens like a piece of architecture. But when I started experimenting with this batch of croissants, that’s not what I was chasing.

I built this croissant with flavor in mind first.

The idea was to combine a very technical pastry with two things I genuinely enjoy working with as a baker: spelt flour and sourdough fermentation. Both bring something that standard croissant dough often lacks. Depth.

Spelt contributes warmth and a slightly nutty sweetness. Sourdough fermentation contributes acidity, particularly lactic acid, which has a way of amplifying the richness of butter.

Croissants are already a complex pastry. My curiosity was simple. What happens when we treat croissants like a fermentation project instead of just a lamination project?

Croissants as a System

One of the ways I approach baking through Breaducated is by thinking in systems.

Dough is never just flour and water. It is a set of variables interacting with each other.

Flour choice affects gluten strength. Fermentation shapes flavor. Butter percentage changes texture. Lamination determines structure.

For this experiment I adjusted several of those variables while keeping others consistent.

The dough contained 50 percent spelt flour. Instead of relying only on commercial yeast, the dough included sourdough starter. The dough was then allowed to ferment overnight in the refrigerator before lamination.

The lamination itself stayed relatively standard, with a 35 percent roll in butter and a traditional folding schedule of two book folds and one letter fold.

In other words, the structure of the croissant remained familiar, while fermentation and grain choice were allowed to shape the flavor.

The Role of Sourdough Fermentation

When people think about sourdough, they often focus on rise. But the most interesting thing sourdough brings to pastry is flavor chemistry.

During fermentation, the bacteria present in sourdough starters produce organic acids. One of the most important of these is lactic acid. Lactic acid is responsible for the yogurt-like tang that appears in many fermented foods. In laminated pastry it does something particularly interesting. It enhances richness.

Butter is already one of the dominant flavors in croissants. When lactic acid is present in the dough, that butter flavor becomes more pronounced and rounded. Instead of tasting simply fatty, the butter develops depth. This is one of the reasons cultured butter tastes more complex than standard sweet cream butter. Fermentation produces acidity that changes how we perceive fat. In this dough, the overnight fermentation allowed those acids to develop slowly before lamination even began.

Working with Spelt

Spelt changes the behavior of the dough in noticeable ways.

Compared to modern bread wheat, spelt has a softer gluten structure. During lamination the dough feels slightly more extensible and requires a gentler hand. Rather than trying to force the dough to behave like a strong bread flour, I chose to lean into that difference. The dough stretched easily during folds and rested well between turns. The layers remained defined, but the dough itself retained a tenderness that carried through the bake.

Spelt did not weaken the croissant.

It simply changed its personality.

The Bake

The first difference became noticeable during baking.

The aroma coming from the oven carried a deeper grain note along with the butter. Once the croissants cooled, the flavor of the spelt and the fermentation became clearer. When broken open, the exterior shattered cleanly while the interior remained soft and almost custardy.

These were not the tallest croissants I have ever made. The crumb was not the most exaggerated honeycomb structure either.

But they were deeply satisfying to eat.

The layers separated cleanly and the flavor had a richness that continued to develop by the next day. After resting overnight, the croissants softened slightly while maintaining their laminated structure. The lactic acidity from the fermentation also became more noticeable, giving the butter flavor even more depth.

They were also excellent for sandwiches.

Flavor and Aesthetics

This experiment made me think about how we evaluate croissants.

In a world where so much food is experienced through images, visual drama can easily become the standard for quality. Height and crumb structure often dominate the conversation.

But good is not always the same thing as impressive.

A croissant can look dramatic and still taste like very little. A croissant that is slightly shorter or more delicate might be the one you actually want to keep eating.

For me, this batch was a reminder that flavor deserves equal attention.

Variety in Baking

One of the things I love most about baking is that small changes in ingredients or fermentation can produce entirely new results.

Different grains bring different personalities to dough. Fermentation changes how we perceive sweetness, acidity, and fat. In this case, combining spelt flour with sourdough fermentation created a croissant that felt distinct without abandoning the structure that makes croissants what they are.

When we start thinking about dough as a system, experimentation becomes less intimidating and far more interesting. Sometimes the most memorable pastries are not the ones that look the most dramatic.

Sometimes they are simply the ones that taste the best.

Why Are We Gatekeeping Bread?

This week, admittedly, I found myself back in the rabbit hole of Facebook group comment sections. Particularly groups about bread.

I know, I know. Terrible idea for anyone who wants to keep their sanity. And yet… It was hard to look away. I don’t know what bothered me more: wild misinformation about the science of breadmaking, or the blatant condescension from those spreading misinformation. We can all be wrong sometimes, that’s just a fact of life. But there is nothing more infuriating than running into someone, especially online, who is so sure in their wrongness that they’re willing to belittle others for the choices they make. And I must say, I see this a lot in the bread baking community.

Why are we gatekeeping bread so hard?

Why are we so concerned with what the “right way” is to do something that’s as old as human history itself?

Bread Has Never Had One Right Way

Bread is one of the oldest human technologies we have. Long before thermometers and digital scales and hydration percentages, people were mixing flour and water and waiting.

There was no single method. No universal formula. No comment section. There was barely even a recipe beyond “mix water with flour until it’s wet. Let it sit until it does something.”

There were just variables: climate, grain type, available fuel, time, culture.

Bread evolved because people adapted.

Bread Has Never Had One Right Way

And yet, somewhere along the way, we’ve started treating bread like a purity test. Commercial yeast versus sourdough. High hydration versus low hydration. Hand kneaded versus stand mixer. Dough conditioners versus “nothing added”. As if choosing one tool over another says something about your moral character.

Why does this happen?

Because bread feels personal.

It’s labor. It’s patience. It’s identity. It’s tradition. When we find something that works for us, especially something that took trial and error to learn, we attach to it. It becomes part of how we understand ourselves.

And when someone else does it differently, it can feel (irrationally) like a challenge. But difference is not a threat. Bread is a system. Change one variable, and the rest respond. That doesn’t make the system wrong. It makes it dynamic.

There Is Room

Sure, there are wrong things in breadmaking. Food safety matters. Ratios matter. Physics matters.

But within those boundaries, there is so much room.

Room for preference.
Room for regional style.
Room for experimentation.
Room for joy.

And maybe we’d all be better bakers, and better teachers, if we spent less time defending our method and more time asking why someone else chose theirs.

Let’s Be Better Learners

So I’d love to know what you feel like you know about bread. And maybe what you wish you knew more about.

What’s the most confusing thing about bread for you right now?
What technique do you swear by?
What concept can’t you quite wrap your head around?
What’s giving you information overload on the internet?

If we want to be better bakers, we also need to be better learners. And learners start by asking questions.

So please… DM me @breaducatedphl and let me know what you want to learn.

Let’s explore it together.

In Defense of Commercial Yeast

Sourdough is having a whole moment right now, and I’m living for it. I love teaching people how to cultivate and maintain their own starters. I love that relationship with an ecosystem; the slow rhythms, the observation, the quiet responsibility of keeping something alive.

But in the same breath, I see so many new bakers disparaging commercial yeast. As if it’s a shortcut. As if it’s a cheat. As if bread made with a packet instead of a jar somehow counts less.

This week, I made a commercially yeasted loaf that deserves a little defense.

Setting the Scene

On Sundays, I often work with a one-on-one learner. In these sessions, we’ve been working with a 50% spelt dough at 85% hydration, no starter, and all commercial yeast leavening.

This week, I made the choice to show him a modified autolyse process. This is one of my favorite gluten strengthening techniques… But I digress. The gist is the salt is added in after a period of rest after mixing the flour, water, and yeast until fully incorporated but not developed structurally. And with that choice, I was inspired to make another series of choices.

The thing is, this has been a busy week. I had projects to start, appointments to take, and a bagel making class to teach at UPenn (still happy crying over this). So…. I made the choice to wait on the bake. My 50% spelt dough, with it’s more delicate gluten structure, was going to wait in my fridge. She waited three full days to be shaped. And she took some time at room temperature before being covered and left in the fridge again overnight. She was out just long enough for a slight indent to form but bounce back when I touched my loaf gently.

And this morning, I turned on my oven and started boiling some water in my kettle. I scored my still cold loaf and let her bake, adding a pan on boiling water for half of her bake. And what I ended up with was this:

• Great lift and intact gluten structure

• Open and soft crumb

• Nutty and lightly sweet in flavor

• Beautiful browning and blistering

And this dough, even without the sourdough we’ve held up so high on a pedestal, is probably one of the best breads I’ve made with limited resources and equipment in my home kitchen. No, it was not sour. But that wasn’t the intent of this loaf. Complexity of flavor in the slow starch breakdown from cold yeast still came through. It was still more than a mostly white bread loaf. It still had a beautiful, albeit under steamed, crust. This loaf took her time. And she still had a story to tell without the preferred fermentation agent of the internet.

Internal Crumb Structure

Open, airy, minimal shaping holes. Consistent fermentation across structure.

Choice as Cause and Effect

After spending so many years surrounded by professional level baking equipment, I’ve come to realize I have no at home baking equipment to my name. All I have is a sheet pan, a metal pan, a water kettle, and a set of kind of sharp kitchen shears. I own less than even the most beginner baker.

The thing is, you don’t need anything but an oven, a sheet pan, and a pan of boiling water to make a great loaf of bread. You don’t need a well established starter. You don’t need the most expensive Dutch oven. You need to make choices and understand how those choices can affect your bread.

Bread is a system of baking and structural thinking. It’s not a single idea of the perfect loaf. Certain tools and equipment can in fact make the process easier, faster even. But when thought of as a system, bread can also be a project that works around your life. And commercial yeast can still create a bread you’re excited to eat.

Post Bake Crust

Crispy crust with some give and audible crunch. Consistent fermentation blisters. Even rise and color. Could use a heavier steam.

Bread as a System

I think we all crave stability. We all want something to just work without much thought. The thing is… When you’re working with a living system, understanding the nuances of that system help you make the best choices. No two bakers will make the same loaf even if they follow the same instructions.

Water temperature could be different. One person’s yeast could be older than another baker’s. Maybe one home is draftier, or one oven runs colder.

The point of making bread isn’t about following one specific path. It’s about learning to control your environment with what you have. To accept that there is something beautiful in making something so simple, yet so faceted. The point is to make choices and see what happens in your own environment. And I encourage you to experiment as heavily with commercial yeast and technique as you do with sourdough starter.

Bread Is a System, Not a Recipe

When people first start baking bread, they usually want a recipe that works every time. And that makes sense. Recipes promise certainty, they offer a clear path from ingredients to outcome.

But if you have ever followed the same recipe twice and gotten two different results, you’ve already learned an important truth about bread:

Bread does not behave like a fixed set of instructions.

It behaves like a system.

A system is made up of parts that interact with one another. Change one piece, and the entire outcome shifts. Bread works the same way.

Why Recipes Feel So Reassuring

Recipes feel comforting because they simplify complexity. They reduce a living, fermenting process into steps we can follow in order. For beginners, that structure can be incredibly helpful. It gives you a place to start. The problem comes when recipes are treated as rules instead of guides.

When a recipe doesn’t work, many bakers assume they did something wrong. In reality, the system changed. Maybe the flour was different. Or, perhaps the kitchen was colder. Fermentation moved slower than anticipated. Hydration felt unfamiliar. Time behaved differently than the first time.

The recipe stayed the same. Everything else didn’t.

The Variables That Shape Bread

Every loaf of bread is shaped by a handful of core variables. You’ve already encountered many of them, even if you didn’t or couldn’t name them yet.

Flour affects absorption, fermentation speed, and flavor.

Water and hydration influence structure, extensibility, and fermentation rate.

Time determines flavor development and strength.

Temperature controls how fast or slow fermentation moves.

The amount of starter or yeast determines how much fermentation power you introduce at the start.

None of these variables exist in isolation. They are constantly influencing one another.

A warmer kitchen shortens fermentation time. A higher hydration dough behaves differently than a stiffer one. A whole grain flour ferments faster than white flour. A stronger, more developed starter changes timing and flavor.

This is why bread cannot be reduced to a single set of steps.

Learning the System Instead of Memorizing the Steps

When you learn bread as a system, your focus shifts.

Instead of asking, “Did I follow the recipe correctly?” you begin asking, “What is happening in my dough right now?”

You learn to notice texture, smell, and structure. You recognize when fermentation is moving quickly or slowly. You understand how changes in environment affect the process.

This doesn’t make bread more complicated. To the contrary, this makes bread more flexible. Once you understand the system, you can adapt. You can adjust timing instead of panicking. You can change hydration instead of starting over. You can make decisions based on observation rather than fear.

Why This Matters for Home Bakers

Home baking is not production baking. You’re not trying to replicate the same loaf hundreds of times under controlled conditions. Your kitchen changes with the seasons. Your schedule changes week to week. Your flour may change depending on availability.

Learning bread as a system allows you to work with those changes instead of fighting them.

It also removes a lot of unnecessary pressure. Bread doesn’t need to be perfect to be successful. It needs to be understood.

When you understand the system, you stop chasing exact outcomes and start building confidence and the perfect loaf for you.

Bread Is a System Because Learning Is a System

One of the reasons bread is such a powerful teaching tool is that it mirrors how learning works.

Understanding develops through observation, pattern recognition, and practice. Mastery comes from noticing relationships, not memorizing rules. That’s why any two bakers can be given the same recipe and end up with vastly different results. That’s not a failure, that’s evidence of systems and choices at work.

Bread invites you to slow down, pay attention, and respond thoughtfully. The more you engage with the system, the more intuitive it becomes.

Where This Leaves You

If you’re new to bread, recipes are a place to begin. They give you structure and something concrete to practice with.

But if you want to grow as a baker, the next step is learning to see beyond the recipe.

Pay attention to how your dough feels. Notice how long fermentation takes in your kitchen. Watch how changes in flour or temperature affect the outcome. Don’t be afraid of “failure”. Every loaf, whether it’s the desired result or not, teaches you something about how the system works. How choices affect outcome. How uncontrollable factors can be worked around. There is no failure in bread, just another lesson.

Bread will teach you, if you let it.

There Is No “Correct” Feeding Schedule… And That’s Kind of the Point.

One of the most common questions I hear about sourdough starters is simple:

“How often should I feed it?”

Once a day? Twice a day? Every 12 hours? Only when it doubles? Only when it smells a certain way?

If you have ever searched for a clear, universal answer, you are not alone. And if trying to follow someone else’s schedule has left you feeling anxious or behind, I want to start with this:

There is no single correct feeding schedule for sourdough.

That is not a problem. It is an invitation.

Why Feeding Schedules Feel So Important

Sourdough can feel mysterious, especially at first. Fermentation happens slowly and much of the work is invisible. You cannot see microbes multiplying or acids developing. You only see the results later, sometimes hours or days after you’ve made a decision.

On top of that, your starter is constantly responding to its environment. Temperature, flour choice, hydration, and time all shape how quickly it ferments and how it behaves. A small change in one of those variables can lead to a noticeably different outcome. When something feels unpredictable or hard to read, it is very human to look for rules that promise clarity.

Schedules feel reassuring because they offer certainty. They suggest that if you follow the steps correctly and feed at the right time, success is guaranteed. When you’re new to sourdough, a schedule can feel like a lifeline. It gives you something concrete to hold onto while everything else feels abstract.

Much of the rigid advice around feeding schedules comes from professional baking environments. In production baking, consistency matters more than exploration. Bakers are working with large volumes of dough, strict timelines, and fixed bake schedules. Starters are fed to be ready at a specific moment so bread can move through a system efficiently and predictably.

Those schedules are designed to meet deadlines and support production. They are not designed to teach how fermentation behaves under different conditions, or how a starter responds when something changes.

Home baking is different.

At home, your starter does not need to perform on demand or fit into a production schedule. There is room to slow down, to notice patterns, and to let fermentation complete its full cycle. The goal is not just to make bread on time, but to understand what is happening along the way.

At home, your starter does not need to be controlled. It needs to be observed.

What Matters More Than the Clock

Instead of asking, “Is it time to feed my starter?” it can be more useful to shift the question slightly and ask what your starter is doing right now.

What does it look like?
Is it domed or beginning to fall? Full of bubbles or relatively smooth? Thick and spongy or loose and fluid?

What does it smell like?
Mild and wheaty, tangy and yogurt-like, sharply acidic, or sweet? Smell is one of the quickest ways to understand where your starter is in its fermentation cycle.

How warm is your kitchen?
Temperature has a major influence on fermentation speed. A starter in a warm kitchen will move much faster than the same starter kept in a cooler space, even if everything else stays the same.

What flour are you feeding it?
Whole grains and flours like spelt contain more nutrients and enzymes than white flour, which often leads to faster fermentation and more noticeable activity. Changing flour can change both timing and flavor.

How active has it been since the last feeding?
Has it risen and fallen? Is it still climbing? Has it barely moved at all? These patterns tell you far more than a set number of hours on the clock.

Time is still a factor, but it is only one variable, and often not the most important one.

A starter fed with whole grain or spelt will ferment differently than one fed with white flour. A starter kept in a warm kitchen will behave differently than one in a cooler environment. A young starter will act differently than a mature one that has found its rhythm. A thicker starter will ferment at a different pace than a more liquid one.

When we try to force all of these variables into a single feeding schedule, we flatten the experience. We trade observation for obedience and miss the chance to learn how fermentation actually works.Feeding as a Response, Not a Rule

Feeding a starter is not something you do because the clock says so. It is something you do in response to the culture’s activity.

Sometimes feeding more frequently makes sense, especially if you are baking often or building strength quickly.

Sometimes waiting longer is the better choice, allowing fermentation to complete its cycle, acids to develop, and structure to change.

Waiting is not neglect. Waiting is observation.

A starter that has gone longer between feedings is not failing. It is showing you how it responds to its environment and its food.

Why Flexibility Creates Better Bakers

Rigid rules can create dependence. Flexible systems build confidence.

When you rely on strict schedules, you are always looking outward for approval. You’re waiting for a chart, a clock, or an expert to tell you what to do next. That can be helpful at the very beginning, but it does not teach you how fermentation actually works.

Confidence comes from learning to read cues.

When you understand what feeding does to flavor, acidity, and fermentation speed, you stop needing someone else to tell you exactly when to act. You begin to notice patterns. You learn how your starter behaves when it is hungry, when it is fully fermented, and when it is over-acidified. You make decisions based on what you see, smell, and feel, not because a certain number of hours has passed.

Mastering fermentation is not about perfect timing. It is about recognition.

It is knowing the difference between a starter that is slow because it is cold and one that is sluggish because it needs food. It is understanding how a sweeter smell differs from a sharply acidic one, and what each of those cues tells you. It is learning how texture and structure change over time, and how those changes connect to flavor and strength.

That is the goal of learning sourdough. Not obedience to a schedule, but literacy in fermentation.

Bread is a system. Feeding schedules are one tool within that system. They can be useful, especially in certain contexts, but they are not the point. The point is understanding how the system responds, so you can adapt it to your kitchen, your flour, and your goals.

Try This Instead

The next time you are standing in your kitchen, looking at your starter and wondering if you are doing something wrong, pause for a moment.

If your starter is alive, sometimes active, sometimes slower, smelling tangy or sweet or even a little funky, that is not a sign of failure. It is information.

Before you reach for the flour or check the clock, try asking yourself two questions:

What is my starter doing right now?
What do I want it to do next?

Then make your choice from there. Feed it. Wait. Change the flour. Adjust the temperature. Take a note and see what happens.

You do not need to get it “right” immediately. The goal is not perfection, but practice.

Each time you ask those questions and respond, you are learning how fermentation works in your own kitchen. Over time, that understanding will matter far more than any fixed feeding schedule ever could.

If you find yourself wanting support as you learn to read these cues, that is exactly what my classes are designed for.

In Breaducated workshops and private lessons, we focus less on rigid instructions and more on understanding fermentation as a system. We look at how time, temperature, flour, hydration, and feeding choices interact, and we practice noticing what dough and starters are telling us in real time.

Whether you are brand new to sourdough or trying to move beyond following recipes, the goal is the same: building confidence through observation, experimentation, and informed decision-making.

The Wild Science of Sourdough Starters

A few days ago, I mixed flour and water in a jar and left it on my counter.

That’s it.
No commercial yeast.
No additives.
No guarantees.

Within a day or two, that quiet mixture began to change. Tiny bubbles formed along the sides of the jar. The smell shifted from raw flour to something tangy and alive. It rose, fell, and reorganized itself in ways that felt almost intentional. In ways that were truly alive.

This is how every sourdough starter begins. Not as a recipe, but as an invitation into a different world. One we can only truly see under a microscope.

What a Sourdough Starter Actually Is

A sourdough starter is a living culture made up of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria. These microorganisms already exist all around us. They live on grain, in the air, on our hands, and on our kitchen surfaces.

When flour and water are mixed and fed regularly, those microorganisms wake up.

Over time, they form a stable ecosystem capable of making bread rise, developing complex flavors, and preserving dough naturally. Unlike commercial yeast, which is designed to work quickly and predictably, a sourdough starter operates on its own timeline. It responds to its environment. It adapts. It is less a tool and more a partnership.

The Microbiology Happening in the Jar

What makes sourdough so fascinating is that it isn’t powered by a single organism. It’s a collaboration. A community, of sorts.

Wild yeast consumes sugars in the flour and produces carbon dioxide, which creates lift in bread. Lactic acid bacteria produce organic acids that shape flavor, strengthen dough structure, and influence digestibility.

These organisms don’t compete in the way we might expect. Instead, they create conditions that support each other. The bacteria acidify the environment in a way that favors certain yeast strains. The yeast, in turn, helps keep the system active and fed.

In the early days of a starter, things can feel chaotic. It might bubble aggressively one day and seem lifeless the next. It might smell fruity, sour, sharp, or vaguely unpleasant. This isn’t failure. It’s succession. Every culture is different. Its needs are different. It lives and breathes and acts accordingly to its own specific needs.

Just like in natural ecosystems, different microorganisms appear first, then give way to others better suited to the environment being created. Stability comes later.

Why No Two Starters Are the Same

Even when two starters begin with the same flour and water, they don’t stay identical for long.

Temperature, feeding schedule, hydration level, flour choice, and geography all influence which microorganisms thrive. Over time, a starter becomes specific to its place and its caretaker. In this way, a starter is very much a pet. We all nurture and care for them differently. They all have their own personalities, mannerisms, and schedules.

In other ways, sourdough starters are records. They hold information about where they live and how they are treated. A starter fed patiently and consistently behaves differently than one fed erratically or rushed along. This starter I’ve created in my kitchen would become a whole different culture in someone else’s. Every environment is different. Every sourdough culture is it’s own unique network of living organisms collaborating together.

There’s something deeply grounding about that. Bread doesn’t just reflect technique. It reflects care, collaboration, and celebration of differences.

What Starting a Starter Teaches Us

Starting a sourdough starter is a reminder that some processes can’t be forced.

You can’t rush fermentation by wanting it harder. You can’t control outcomes by micromanaging every variable. All you can do is show up, feed consistently, observe honestly, and respond to what’s actually happening instead of what you wish were happening.

That lesson applies far beyond baking.

Learning, growth, and community all work the same way. They take time. They require attention. And they thrive when we make space for them to develop naturally instead of demanding immediate results.

If sourdough has ever felt intimidating, I hope this reframes it. You’re not mastering a technique. You’re tending a relationship. You’re learning the needs of a whole group of organisms.

This kind of slow, curious baking is at the heart of what I teach through Breaducated. Bread is never just bread. It’s science, history, culture, and care, all happening quietly on your kitchen counter.

And sometimes, the most fascinating classroom is a jar of flour and water, doing its thing.

Life is Messy. So is Learning.

The last time I wrote here, I was deep in the world of spelt: its history, its quirks, the way it behaves differently from modern wheat. Since then, a lot has shifted, both quietly and loudly. I’ve been teaching, researching, re-thinking how I want to share what I know, and letting Breaducated grow a little more organically than I originally planned. Rather than jumping into something new, it felt right to start again from where my curiosity has been living.

2025 brought me quite a few challenges. There’s been a lot of personal turmoil mixed with the beauty of professional growth. I’ve been making major shifts in my career and personal path. That is terrifying, even under the best circumstances. But at the same time, I’ve been able to land partnerships to pilot multiple community based programs, have been in talks with nonprofits about my curricula, have gotten classes booked at an Ivy League institution, and have even booked a couple of private clients.

The thing no one tells you about creating your own project is that momentum is slow, especially in the beginning. There is no such thing as a straight trajectory, and learning how to let people see the parts of you that feel so personal is part of the deal. I have spent a long time over the past year learning how to talk about Breaducated, because this project is so deeply personal and important to me. Breaducated is not just a business or side hustle for me. This is how I learn, how I teach, and how I interact with the world. Breaducated is the “branded” version of my internal world. To feel like I’m failing in some way feels like a direct reflection of my character, not just the beginnings of a new journey.

So…. Why am I being so deeply personal on my own website to the entire world? How does this relate to bread or baking? Well… One thing baking, and especially breadmaking, has taught me over many years of honing this craft, is this:

• Failure is part of learning. It’s the most important thing actually. Knowing what not to do is just as important.

• Patience is a virtue. Something doesn’t look right or isn’t coming together the way you think it should? You might just need more time.

• Repetition and consistency are the most important parts of getting good at anything.

• And most importantly: perceived failure is not the same thing as actually failing.

What do I mean when I say that perceived failure is not the same thing as actually failing? I mean that mistakes happen. That learning is messy. That there is no such thing as a truly linear path when someone is developing a new skill or thought process.

“How does this relate to Breaducated?” you may be asking. This, in fact, is the heart of the mission of Breaducated. Baking is a tool for interacting with life. For interacting with subjects and concepts that feel scary when they’re on paper alone. Baking is a tool for learning that failure is not inherently negative. It’s data. Data for how we want to approach the same problem or situation next time. Data for what worked and what didn’t. Data for how we feel after any given situation.

Baking, especially in high volume and high stakes fine dining, has always been a form of “exposure therapy” for me and my inner gifted student who would cry if my report card was anything short of straight A’s. The lessons I’ve learned through bread and baking have gone far beyond technical knowledge. They have fundamentally changed how I approach the world. This is what Breaducated is about. It’s not about resisting or preventing failure. It’s about acknowledging that we all have to start somewhere. It’s about knowing that even the most well read person in the room still has something to learn. It’s about becoming comfortable with discomfort.

Life is messy. So is learning. 2025 taught me a lot about myself and what I want. It’s taught me a lot about what I want to share with the world. It brought me back to bread and baking in its most foundational lesson: there is always something else that needs to be learned.

Rediscovering Spelt: My Journey with an Ancient Grain

Lately, I’ve been baking a lot with spelt. It started as an experiment, but the more I work with it, the more fascinated I’ve become; not just with how it bakes, but with the story it carries.

I first reached for spelt out of curiosity. I’d read that it was one of the oldest cultivated grains, a relative of modern wheat with roots stretching back thousands of years. There’s something grounding about working with an ingredient that connects me to such a long lineage of bakers and farmers. People who were feeding their communities long before industrial flour or standardized recipes existed. I think part of me wanted to feel closer to that kind of simplicity, to see what lessons an ancient grain might hold for a modern baker like me.

The first time I laminated dough with spelt flour, I expected it to behave like wheat. It didn’t. The gluten was softer, more tender, and the dough wanted to relax at every turn. It didn’t fight back the way a strong bread flour would; instead, it asked me to slow down, to pay attention. The layers weren’t as tight or regimented as a classic French croissant, and at first, I thought I had “done something wrong.” But when I pulled them from the oven, what I found was different… but beautiful.

The croissants were more open, more feathery, almost flake-on-flake instead of honeycomb pockets. They stayed crisp longer, and the flavor was deeper: nutty, sweet, almost malty, like toasted grain and honey. That was the moment I realized spelt wasn’t just a substitute for wheat. It had its own voice.

Working with spelt has become a kind of teacher for me. It’s reminded me that not everything has to conform to expectation to be worthy. Sometimes, in trying to force dough (or ourselves) into a familiar shape, we miss the beauty of what’s trying to emerge naturally. Spelt’s softness, its willingness to unfold rather than resist, has changed the way I approach lamination, and honestly, the way I approach baking as a whole.

Now, every time I mix a dough with spelt, I feel like I’m in conversation with something older and wiser than myself. It asks me to listen, to adapt, and to celebrate what makes it unique rather than trying to make it behave like something else. And that lesson, I think, extends far beyond the kitchen.

A Grain with History

Spelt (Triticum spelta) is one of humanity’s oldest cultivated grains, dating back over 8,000 years. It was a staple in Bronze Age Europe and especially beloved in medieval Germany, where it was known as dinkel. Monks praised it for being nourishing and easy to digest.

But as farming industrialized, spelt’s protective husk made it too labor intensive compared to modern wheat. Spelt's unique characteristic, its tightly bound, protective husk that had once been an advantage, became a disadvantage. This husk, while safeguarding the grain from pests and environmental damage, also made the milling process more labor-intensive and time-consuming compared to modern wheat varieties that were being developed for easier processing. As a result, spelt gradually receded from mainstream cultivation and consumption, overshadowed by the efficiency-driven demands of the burgeoning industrial food system.

For many decades, spelt remained largely forgotten, relegated to the fringes of the agricultural landscape. Yet, in recent years, a renewed interest in traditional grains has emerged, driven by a growing desire among bakers and eaters alike for food that offers more than just sustenance. This resurgence is fueled by a search for richer, more complex flavors that mass-produced grains often lack, a demand for greater nutritional value, and a longing for a deeper connection to the origins and processes of what we consume. Spelt, with its ancient heritage, distinctive nutty taste, and impressive nutritional profile, has once again captured the attention of those of us seeking to rediscover the bounty of forgotten grains and to foster a more mindful relationship with our food.

The Science Behind the Dough

Working with spelt has truly been a journey of discovery, teaching me the invaluable lessons of patience and softness in the kitchen. Unlike the robust, unyielding gluten found in modern bread wheat, spelt's gluten is a delicate creature. It simply doesn't respond well to being pushed too hard or manipulated aggressively. Over-mixing it, for example, quickly leads to a torn, unmanageable dough, while stretching it too far results in frustrating resistance and a loss of its inherent elasticity.

However, when approached with a gentle hand and a mindful presence, spelt generously rewards the baker. The result is a tender crumb, a texture that melts in the mouth, and a depth of flavor that transcends the ordinary. It's a taste that feels ancient, a gift from another time, connecting us to a rich culinary heritage.

I've observed the fascinating science in action within spelt dough. Its unique proteins form a gluten network, but one that is inherently more water-soluble and less rigid than that of modern wheat. This characteristic explains why spelt dough tends to spread more readily and why the shaping process can sometimes feel a little unpredictable, demanding a different kind of finesse. 

Yet, these very qualities are precisely what contribute to the exceptional character of spelt breads and pastries. They possess an earthy sweetness that is both subtle and profound, and a complex flavor profile that is truly unparalleled, often featuring nutty, almost malty undertones. It’s this delicate balance – the challenge of mastering its unique behavior in the kitchen and the rich reward of its distinctive taste and texture – that makes working with spelt such a deeply satisfying experience, transforming it from a mere ingredient into a true culinary adventure. The satisfaction comes not just from the final product, but from the journey of understanding and coaxing the best out of this ancient grain.

Why I Keep Coming Back

For me, spelt has become more than just another flour in my pantry. It’s a reminder that baking isn’t about control, it’s about listening. Every time I roll out spelt dough, I feel like I’m in conversation with a grain that’s been with us for thousands of years.

When I bake with spelt, I’m not just making bread or croissants. I’m learning to embrace difference, to celebrate imperfection, and to honor a grain that refuses to be tamed into sameness.

Sources & Further Reading

If you love geeking out about grains as much as I do, here are some of the sources I explored while diving into spelt’s history and science. They range from archaeology papers to baking science studies; perfect if you want to see just how deep this rabbit hole goes!

• Genomic Insights into the Origin and Evolution of Spelt (Triticum spelta)
  Read on PubMed Central
  
  

• Comparative Study on Gluten Protein Composition of Ancient Wheats (Including Spelt)
  Read on PubMed Central
  
  

• Inventions, Innovations and the Origins of Spelt Wheat
  Read on Springer
  
  

• Gluten Proteins from Spelt (Triticum aestivum ssp. spelta) Cultivars: A Rheological and Size-Exclusion High Performance Liquid Chromatography Study
  Read PDF from USDA
  
  

• Chemical Characterization and Breadmaking Potential of Spelt
  Read on ScienceDirect
  
  

• Differences in Processing Quality Traits, Protein Content and Composition Between Spelt and Bread Wheat Genotypes
  Read on PubMed Central
  
  

• Spanish Spelt Wheat: From an Endangered Genetic Resource to a Crop with Potential
  Read on PubMed Central
  
  

• Rheological Behavior of Emmer, Spelt, and Khorasan Flours
  Read on Wiley Online Library

What is Gluten, Really?

Before I can go into my experience working beyond wheat, I think we need to take a moment to discuss the most important protein in bread baking: gluten.

When you picture gluten, you might think of stretchy dough, windowpane tests, and chewy bread. That’s not wrong, but it’s not the full picture either. Gluten doesn’t look or behave the same in every grain. In fact, each grain builds its own unique structure. Those different gluten structures allow each grain to behave differently, giving them each their own specific baking properties. Understanding those differences isn’t just food science trivia; it’s the key to unlocking bread that works with the grain, rather than fighting against it.

What Does Gluten Look Like?

Gluten is a protein network formed when water meets certain grain flours, specifically the proteins gliadin and glutenin. The way those proteins bond determines how elastic, extensible, or delicate the dough will be.

Think of gluten like building materials: some grains make steel cables, others make silk threads. Both can be beautiful, but they need different handling to shine.

A Spectrum of Structures

• Wheat – The “classic” grain for bread baking. Balanced elasticity (stretch) and extensibility (ability to hold shape). Creates strong, bouncy dough that can handle long fermentation and high hydration.

• Spelt – More fragile gluten bonds. Less elastic than wheat and quick to overdevelop. Can produce wonderfully tender, open crumbs. But push it too far, and the structure collapses.

• Rye – Very low gluten-forming proteins. Structure relies more on pentosans, which hold water and give rye bread its dense but moist texture. Doesn’t behave like wheat at all. That’s part of the charm!

• Einkorn – Ancient and nutrient-rich, but its gluten is weak and sticky. Hydrates quickly, doesn’t stretch much, and benefits from gentle shaping.

• Barley / Oats – Almost no gluten. Great for flavor and nutrition when blended with higher-gluten flours, but won’t form a strong bread structure on their own.

Why This Matters in the Kitchen

Strong gluten can trap more gas, giving you tall, airy loaves. Weak gluten produces breads that are lower and denser, but also softer and more tender.

This is why you can’t treat every grain like wheat.

• A long, aggressive knead that works for strong bread flour can destroy delicate spelt dough.

• High hydration that benefits a wheat loaf might cause einkorn to spread into a flat pancake.

• Rye needs fermentation and shaping strategies that respect its unique chemistry and wildly different gluten structure.

When you understand the structure you’re working with, you can tailor your technique. And just like that, instead of “failing,” you’re collaborating with the grain.

How I Learned This (My Spelt Journey)

Lately, I’ve been working almost exclusively with spelt. At first, I kept treating it like wheat: long kneads, cold overnight ferments, and high hydrations. And at first… I kept getting flat loaves and tight crumbs.

It wasn’t until I started respecting spelt’s delicate gluten that things shifted. Shorter mixing. Slightly lower hydration. Warm but not too warm fermentation. Now, I’m pulling more open, tender crumb loaves from the oven and marveling at how much character this grain has when it’s allowed to just be itself.

I’m still learning, and still listening to the grain. I have a long way to go until I truly know what spelt needs to thrive. Unlike wheat, spelt creates a delicate, almost custardy interior crumb.

No, it’s not pudding in the middle, but it does melt in your mouth. It has much less chew to it than wheat. I

ts crumb structure is often much more uniform, with smaller fermentation holes due to its higher gliadin to glutenin ratio (meaning, it’s not nearly as elastic as wheat). It has its own movements, its own rhythm, its own personal tells.

While spelt is the most “wheat-like” of ancient grains in how it behaves, it certainly is not wheat. Taking the time to listen to what it needs made all the difference for me.

The Takeaway

Gluten is not a one-size-fits-all protein structure. Each grain has it’s own unique network of protein bonds, made up of glutenin and gliadin.

Once you start recognizing how gluten behaves in different grains, you stop fighting your dough and start collaborating with it. And that’s when the magic happens.

The Grain Less Traveled

Baking has always been a deeply personal act for me. With well over a decade of professional baking experience under my belt, I’ve found myself reflecting more and more on what baking means to me. Not just on a technical level, but also emotionally.

This blog is a journal of sorts; a reflection on the study I’ve dedicated my entire adult life to.

Breaducated started with a simple initiative: make education accessible through a tangible, real world application. In many ways, that’s still very true. But more and more, Breaducated has become my personal field guide and philosophy; a place for me to explore what grains have taught me, what I’m still learning, and how baking has become a lifeline for the moments when I feel most misunderstood in the world.

Lately, I’ve been working exclusively with spelt. An ancient grain with a delicate gluten structure that is often considered temperamental and finicky in comparison to wheat. In a lot of ways, this has become a deeply personal project. I see myself in spelt. In how it has been labelled too unpredictable, too delicate, too specific in it’s needs.

As someone who has found it difficult to find her place in this world, to find a sense of community, and to feel understood by those around her, I have learned so much from and related so heavily to spelt as a grain. It’s need for gentleness. It’s desire to be seen for who it is, not to be compared to modern wheat. Spelt doesn’t act like modern wheat. It ferments faster. Its gluten is more delicate. It doesn’t hold shape the same way, and it doesn't like to be forced. Working with it requires a different kind of listening. And the more time I’ve spent with it —testing hydration, experimenting with lamination, watching it collapse and rise again —the more I’ve realized: spelt is teaching me how to approach things with less control and more care.

And so, this is the introduction to The Grain Diaries. Part personal reflection, part scientific log of my journey with spelt. Yes, this is about the science of grain, gluten, and baking. But it’s also about identity, failure, discovery, and intention. It’s about the lessons we learn when we truly listen to our ingredients and ourselves in the process.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing about:

• What makes spelt different from wheat

• How gluten behaves across ancient grains

• What I’ve learned from trying to laminate with a flour that resists definition

• And how all of this ties back to the core of Breaducated: that education is a right, and learning is most powerful when it’s experiential.

I don’t know exactly where this path is leading yet. But I know I need to walk it.

So… this is where I’ll start.
With the grain. With the questions. With the need to understand, and the hope that maybe someone else out there is wondering about the same things, too.

Welcome to The Grain Diaries. I’m glad you’re here.