Across the nation, sourdough is having a moment.
And at 20537 Timbermill Drive in leafy suburban Frankfort, homemade sourdough bread is selling like hotcakes.
Since October, Christie Baron has spent weekends stacking round loaves of her leavened, airy bread onto a cart in her driveway and inviting customers to buy the homemade goodness via the honor system.
Cottage industries are almost as old as the custom of baking bread. Both began millennia ago.
And while it may seem people today enjoy the convenience of supermarket shopping, the “Frankfort Bread Lady” is proving there’s plenty of market space for artisan businesses too.
“It’s been incredible,” said Baron, a part-time surgical nurse and mother of three.
“I love this neighborhood,” she said. “People have been so nice.”
While she believes most of her customers are local, she’s learning a good number of them are willing to travel.
“One lady called from Indiana,” she said. “If you come from far away and I know you’re coming, I will put a loaf aside.”
Otherwise, it’s first-come, first-served from the cart her husband built to match their two-story home. Goods go out at 8 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The cart closes at sunset.
Baron advertises through her Facebook page (www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61586246814187), encouraging customers to check in frequently. Sometimes she sells out quickly. Sometimes she has new items, such as recently introduced baguettes and chocolate chip cookies or the turkey-shaped loaves she put out at Thanksgiving.
Homemade sourdough’s popularity is creating a growing industry of microbakers across the country. In addition to its tangy flavor, customers praise its health properties.
“There’s a bunch of good probiotics and good bacteria in it,” Baron said. What’s not in it is the alphabet soup of preservative enhancements that the health-minded crowd tries to avoid.
A plain loaf sells for $10. Italian and garlic-flavored bread costs $12 a loaf. Everything Bagel-flavored loaves are also $12. Plain baguettes are two for $12, while herb- and garlic-flavored are two for $14. Cookies cost $1 each.
If you know anything about sourdough, you know making it is a process. So was Baron’s journey to becoming a small businessperson.
Like a lot of new moms, Baron said her family income took a hit when she went part time after giving birth, first to her now-6-year-old daughter and later, her now-4-year-old twin sons.
At the same time, she longed for a hobby that could help her destress and be creative but let her stay home with her kids.
Gardening serves as her summer pastime and, these days, bread baking heats up the house on wintry days.
Though she comes from a long line of bakers, Baron said she never considered herself to be in the same class as her mother and grandmothers.
Then, a year and half ago, a friend suggested she try making sourdough, that it was the “big rage.”
“I made my first loaf and when I popped that lid I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I did it,’” she said.
Like dough on a mixer attachment, she was hooked.
Baron started small, making and giving loaves to family and friends. When she realized she loved the process and that her recipients loved the results, she expanded her goals. And overhauled her kitchen.
She enrolled in a food managers/food handlers course with the Will County Health Department.
“I wanted to make sure I did it the right way,” she said.
After she passed the exam in October, she received a cottage food license and created an LLC for insurance purposes.
The “baked on” date and registration number are featured on every item’s label, she said. “And every label and every recipe have to be approved by the health department.”
With her new passion established, Baron and her husband, Eric, installed two extra ovens on the patio and, after she burned out the motor on her KitchenAid, purchased a 20-quart industrial-size mixer, which she affectionately named for her grandmother, “Grandma K.”
The idea for an outdoor cart came from her sister, who runs a farm in Manhattan.
“Every fall they put out a cart of corn stalks and straw bales at the end of their driveway,” Baron said.
Now, she said, bread baking has become her zen, even if her life has become a whirlwind.
“There are so many steps,” she said. “Feeding the starter, making the dough, resting, stretch and folds every half hour for two hours, then bulk fermenting for hours, then shaping it, then it goes into bannetons, then into the fridge to cold proof, to get the gluten to solidify, then take it out and make the final shape.”
Then bake and cool completely.
“I love the science behind it,” she said. “I love losing myself in the process.”
Baron’s weekly production run begins on Sundays, when she puts the starter, which she quaintly named “Doughlores,” into the refrigerator. She takes it out on Wednesday, lets it get to room temperature and starts feeding it.
On Thursday, she starts making the dough.
“I try to make as much as I can,” she said.
The loaves go onto the cart first thing weekend mornings. Signs direct customers where to put the cash.
“Most people are very honest,” she said. “Someone even messaged me that they took an Italian loaf and didn’t realize they paid for a plain. They said they would leave an extra two bucks next time.”
Being able to create and share art that is also nutritious has been rewarding, Baron said.
“I’ve had stomach issues my whole life so I try to make everything homemade — butter, ketchup. I don’t want all that extra stuff in my kids’ food,” she said. “I love being able to do that for others too.”
Since the cart went out last fall, Baron said, her free time has become “very scheduled.”
“Now, I live by the timer,” she said. “But I love it.”
Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at donnavickroy4@gmail.com.
