{"id":365972,"date":"2026-10-06T16:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T16:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365972\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T16:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T16:20:22","slug":"meet-the-queen-of-sourdough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365972\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Queen of Sourdough"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long before lockdowns led the rest of us to develop codependent relationships with our sourdough starters in 2020, Anne-Marie Bonneau had declared hers \u2014 named Heloise after a tragic Middle Ages figure who was ultimately dispensed to a nunnery \u2014 a \u201cdud.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bonneau was already well acquainted with baking bread when she created Heloise and began experimenting with sourdough. Her mother-in-law ran a bakery and taught Bonneau years earlier using dry yeast, though she left an offhand comment hanging in the air: \u201cNow a real baker will use yeast that they capture to make their bread.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It took Bonneau a couple of decades before she took on her mother-in-law\u2019s implicit challenge in 2013, after she read Michael Pollan\u2019s Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (available on Amazon<\/a> and Thriftbooks<\/a>), which, she says, has a big section on sourdough. \u201cOkay,\u201d Bonneau remembers thinking, \u201cI\u2019m gonna try this.\u201d Her loaves, however, didn\u2019t rise as she would have liked, and Heloise, her first sourdough starter, took the heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In hindsight, she wonders if she was too hard on Heloise. She was \u201cjust fine,\u201d Bonneau says now. Nonetheless, Heloise was out (\u201ceaten, which is a thing people sometimes do,\u201d Bonneau says. \u201cI probably turned her into crackers\u201d), and Eleanor \u2014 named after Eleanor of Aquitaine, and who recently turned 12 \u2014 was in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Success wasn\u2019t immediate. \u201cIt took time,\u201d Bonneau says. \u201cI started to take notes. \u2026 That way, if I did want to change one little thing, there\u2019d be a note of it, and then I could later on look back and see, \u2018Okay, well, how did that loaf turn out with that one change?\u2019\u201d She experimented, making small tweaks, such as changing whole-wheat for spelt flour. Her \u201ctons and tons of notes,\u201d included bits about her day, as much diary as troubleshooting guide. Though it took a while, Bonneau eventually \u2014 and consistently \u2014 produced loaves she was happy with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, she\u2019s so confident in her sourdough that she started to offer classes via her website, Zero-Waste Chef<\/a>. A class is a great way of demystifying the process, she says. But once people see how easy it is, they\u2019re often surprised. \u201cOne woman who took it said, \u2018Really? That\u2019s it?\u2019 I think she wanted her money back.\u201d Bonneau laughs. \u201cYeah, it\u2019s simple when someone shows you!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anne-MarieAnne-Marie Bonneau slicing sourdough bread. \u2013 Photo by Sree Sripathy<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t take a class (Bonneau is currently living with her 94-year-old mother in Canada and hasn\u2019t been offering them lately), she suggests getting a starter from a friend who\u2019s got one, or even buying one from a local vendor or online<\/a>. Otherwise, you can make it on your own using her recipe below.<\/p>\n

And then \u2026 be patient, something Bonneau admits she wasn\u2019t with Heloise. There\u2019s a smell that throws people off, she says. \u201cIt will smell really bad,\u201d she says, \u201cAnd a lot of people think, \u2018Oh, I ruined it,\u2019 and they throw it out \u2014 hopefully to composting.\u201d The smell, she promises, will go away, if you keep feeding it. (See box for tips.)<\/p>\n

On the day we spoke, Bonneau had a friend coming over that evening for some sourdough coaching. The friend had bought a banneton basket \u2014 used to \u201cproof\u201d sourdough, the fermentation process by which bread rises \u2014 and a scale. Bonneau doesn\u2019t go in for gadgets much herself, though she says a scale is nice to have. That way, you\u2019re not stuck counting cups of flour only to have your phone buzz mid-count and, she says, \u201cyou start looking at cat videos\u201d and lose track. Though also not necessary, she adds, \u201ca grain mill is an awesome thing to have.\u201d While she hasn\u2019t milled all her flour, she sometimes mills about 60% of it, and \u201cit\u2019s amazing.\u201d It\u2019s so good, in fact, that her daughter, returning home from school one day and taste-testing a loaf, turned to her mother to announce, \u201cyou have a problem now.\u201d Bonneau nodded. \u201cYeah, now I have to always grind my own flour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thing with a sourdough starter, Bonneau notes, is that \u201cit\u2019s alive, it\u2019s full of live cultures,\u201d which creates a connection between a baker and their bread. Much more so, say, than baking a dozen chocolate chip cookies or cooking a pot of soup. \u201cIf anything happens to Eleanor, I\u2019ll be sad,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a pet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To those who are struggling with their own starters, Bonneau recommends taking some pressure off. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to make bread right away. They can make pancakes or crackers \u2026 until they get the hang of feeding it. Once your starter comes to life and you start feeding it regularly \u2026 it\u2019s just so easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anne-MarieAnne-Marie Bonneau. \u2013 Photo by Sree Sripathy<\/p>\n

The ease is a big part of what Bonneau loves about sourdough. \u201cIt\u2019s three ingredients: flour, water, salt. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s all you need to make the best bread.\u201d<\/p>\n

She steers clear of making 100% whole-wheat flour bread because, she finds, it turns out \u201ctoo dense. Others might be better at it.\u201d Instead, she always adds a bit of all-purpose flour. Her tried-and-true ratio is 60% whole-wheat flour, 25% rye, and 15% all-purpose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She bakes her bread in Dutch ovens. \u201cThat imitates a professional baker\u2019s oven that injects steam into the interior of the oven,\u201d she says. She bakes a loaf at 450\u00b0F for 20 minutes with the lid on, and then checks on it. \u201cThat\u2019s when you know if it\u2019s risen. I always brace myself, \u2018Did it rise?\u2019\u201d Presuming it did, she continues baking for another 23 to 25 minutes with the lid off. You can bake without a Dutch oven, she says, but you won\u2019t get that nice, somewhat shiny crust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bread is a simple food, one that exists in some form or another in every culture in the world. Sourdough specifically traces a history back to the Egyptians in 3,500 BCE. And yet, we\u2019re still trying to master the perfect loaf. Our Queen of Sourdough is close, even as she continues to reach for perfection. \u201cI live in Silicon Valley with a whole bunch of billionaires,\u201d Bonneau says, \u201cand when I pull my little bread out of the oven and I slice into it and eat it, I know that no one is eating bread better than that. Even though I\u2019m just in my little humble kitchen, there\u2019s no billionaire eating better bread.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s Get this Party Starter-ed!<\/p>\n

So, you\u2019ve taken a class, followed Bonneau\u2019s recipe below, or bought your starter. Now, Bonneau says, let it sit. Stir it every day. After a few days, you might see a couple of bubbles. Wait. Do not feed it yet, though many do. \u201cBy doing that, they remove a lot of the yeast that\u2019s just getting started in there and then it just dies,\u201d Bonneau says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll begin to notice a smell. This is where a lot of people think there\u2019s something wrong, Bonneau says. \u201cIt probably won\u2019t smell good. It\u2019s possible it will smell fruity, but I find it usually doesn\u2019t smell that good \u2026 like bad cheese or dirty socks. You\u2019ll know the aroma.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you smell it, then it\u2019s time to feed your starter. \u201cIf you\u2019re unsure, just wait. A day \u2026 even a little longer.\u201d Then feed it. Feeding involves removing most of your starter, then adding lukewarm water and flour to what remains. (Get the full instructions below.) You\u2019ll need to feed it for several days before it\u2019s ready to be used in cooking, but you can save the \u201cdiscard\u201d to use in other recipes, like the Easy 5-Ingredient Biscuits and the Ultimate Pumpkin Sourdough Discard Muffins below.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not necessary to name your starter, Bonneau says, but she does suspect we\u2019ll take better care of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recipes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long before lockdowns led the rest of us to develop codependent relationships with our sourdough starters in 2020,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[17942,9,24,63,122,124,123,135563],"class_list":["post-365972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-baked-goods","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-zero-waste"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}