Our Sourdough Baking Gift Guide - for Sourdough Bakers You Love

We all probably have the tools we need to start baking sourdough bread around our kitchen. A bowl, measuring cups or a scale, a towel, a knife/razor blade and something to bake your bread on, like a cookie sheet/roaster/dutch oven/bread pan. Additionally, we all need a container to keep our starter.

While baking perfectly tasty sourdough bread doesn’t require many tools, if a baker you love is hooked on sourdough, there are definitely some tools that will improve their bread and make their baking-life easier.

Here is a list of perfect gifts, taken from the buying guide in our Sourhouse Community Cookbook and updated for the sourdough baker in your life this holiday season.

The Basics

1. Kitchen Scale: A digital kitchen scale is essential to measure the ingredients accurately by weight. It's important to get a good quality scale that can measure in grams or ounces. If you don’t have one, this is the first thing to buy. 
2. Dough Scraper: This tool is helpful for scraping the dough off the bowl and surface when kneading and shaping the dough. You can get a plastic scraper for a few dollars. 
3. Parchment Paper: Parchment paper is used to transfer the shaped dough to the baking sheet without sticking. You can buy a roll of parchment paper for a few dollars. In the meantime, you can dust your baking sheet with cornmeal or flour.
   
   

The Big Upgrades

When you hit a plateau and are ready to upgrade your kit further, the next purchase would be either a thermometer, dutch oven/roaster or a Goldie. 

1. Probe Thermometer: Understanding temperature is key to making great loaves consistently. You can use a probe thermometer to help judge when your bread is finished baking, to understand the temperature of your room, starter and dough.
2. Dutch Oven or Enamel Roaster: A Dutch oven, or roaster is used to bake your bread and to create a humid environment during the first stages of baking. This will give you more oven spring. 
3. Goldie by Sourhouse: When you are ready to keep your starter on a schedule and to keep it most active, the award-winning Goldie provides a warm, safe home for your starter.
   
   

The “Nice-to-Haves”

1. Starter Jar: Any jar will hold a starter, but some are better than others. Using a jar designed for sourdough starter will make feeding, rise tracking and clean-up easier. 
2. Bread Blanket by Sourhouse: Eventually you will want to share your bread and something like our Bread Blankets will make your bread ready for transporting and gifting.  
3. Banneton or Proofing Basket: A banneton or proofing basket is used to hold the dough as it proofs and helps shape the dough into a round or oblong shape. You can use a colander or a bowl lined with a floured towel as a makeshift proofing basket. 
4. Razor Blades (and maybe a lame for holding a blade): is the easiest way to score your bread. A sharp knife will work in the meantime. 
5. Robust Oven Mitts: Once you start handling 500ºF dutch oven lids regularly you might want something more robust than the typical pot holder.
6. Grain Mill: Milling your own grains unlocks a world of flavor possibilities and new challenges.