Free online courseSourdough - Start to Finish

Course Description

Turn flour, water, salt, and time into bakery-quality loaves with a practical, start-to-finish approach to sourdough. This free online course is designed for anyone who wants reliable results and professional habits in the kitchen, whether you are baking for family, building a side hustle, or sharpening culinary skills for work. You will learn how small choices in process create big differences in flavor, structure, and consistency, and how to repeat those results with confidence.

Instead of vague tips, you will build an eye for accuracy and control. You will see why weighing to the gram matters when hydration levels, fermentation speed, and dough strength all depend on precise ratios. You will also learn a logical mixing workflow that makes hand mixing easier and more consistent, including why many bakers add wet ingredients first to reduce dry pockets and improve incorporation. These details help you move from hoping the dough behaves to understanding what it needs at each stage.

The course follows multiple sourdough formats so you can adapt the core method to different goals: rustic artisan loaves, soft sandwich bread, English muffins, and even laminated pastries. As you practice, you will recognize how enrichments, sweeteners, and production constraints change dough behavior, including why some large-scale bakeries avoid ingredients like brown sugar. By learning the reasoning behind techniques, you will be able to troubleshoot issues such as dense crumbs, weak rise, or inconsistent texture without starting over every time.

You will also develop the finishing skills that make homemade bread look and bake like it came from a professional deck oven. From preparing dough for proofing to getting clean release from bannetons, to confident scoring and baking fresh loaves, you will learn how to set up each bake for strong oven spring and attractive bloom. For croissants, you will explore how experimenting with lamination patterns and folding ratios can improve honeycomb crumb, flake, and lift, giving you a repeatable path to impressive results.

By the end, you will have a complete workflow you can use again and again, along with the judgment to adjust based on temperature, timing, and desired outcome. If you want a skill that translates from home baking to professional kitchens, this course gives you the craft foundation to bake with precision, creativity, and consistency.