Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen From.
Hi Karen, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
How I started… since I was a ten-year-old girl living in the country of rural Missouri and needing something to occupy my mind, I found the science and art of baking. My love of baking was cakes, cookies and yeast breads. My professional career spanned over thirty years as a registered and licensed dietitian working with clients of all ages, guiding them to choose good quality foods for themselves and their families. Through those choices, they would ultimately benefit their health through the compilation of the best meals and meal plans.
Twelve years ago, I found the art and science of sourdough breads while attending a weekend workshop at the San Francisco Baking Institute. I continued gaining experience and testing various sourdough bread recipes using various flours and even freshly milling my own whole grains to add to the breads for enrichment and flavor. I also asked family, friends and neighbors to taste and provide feedback on my sourdough bread creations. My love and passion for baking continued, especially while learning the art and science that goes into sourdough breads to obtain the best flavors. My husband, Jeffrey and I prayed about starting the not-for-profit bakery and school about ten years ago and believed God would bless our endeavors. Three years ago, the timing was right and through our Lord’s blessings, we were able to start building the bakery and school. We designed our bakery building to resemble a country one room school building and used the money we had saved for this dream to build it debt free. We believe in giving back to our community. Through this belief and a guiding by the Lord, we wanted to then donate all the profits from the bakery to those who are food insecure in our community. Every quarter we donate our profits to the Nodaway County Senior Center and the Ministry Center for Backpack Buddies.
A Bit of Leaven Artisanal Bakery and School opened its doors October first, 2024. It has been a blessed year! God has brought kind customers who believe in our mission to give back to the community’s food insecure, and the bonus is they are able to enjoy delicious, good for you, whole grain sourdough breads made to order once a month. Our customers can also purchase croissants every other month or attend a baking class at the bakery with friends, family or design their own baking event for groups of 4-6.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a learning experience for sure. The building took over two years to build and fill with commercial baking equipment, There were many decisions to make from designing the flow of the bakery, choosing the correct equipment and designing a welcoming, peaceful, joy filled ambience. for our clientele. The blessing of a talented marketing materials designer for social media has been very helpful. Word of mouth of satisfied customers, positive google posts and asking for and responding to customer feedback, I believe has added to our continued selling out of monthly bread orders, croissant orders and classes. As I say, I don’t know what I don’t know. I am still learning and trying to positively respond to all that I am learning about running our not-for-profit business.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about A Bit of Leaven Artisanal Bakery and School?
Our not-for-profit Christian focused artisanal bakery, and school opened its doors to our dream October first, 2024. You should know over and above our operating expenses and taxes we give all our profits to feeding programs within our NW Missouri community.
We are known for our once a month delicious and good for you made to order sourdough breads and sourdough croissants. Each loaf contains at least one third freshly milled in-house whole grains and the bacteria and wild yeast contained in the levain of each loaf makes each loaf more easily digested and aids in gut microbiota.
The bakery school is unique to this area. It offers small, hands-on baking classes on various baking topics. We offer four-hour classes, one day classes and two-day sourdough bread workshops. Customers, with a group of 4-6 participants, can schedule and design their own unique baking experiences.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
My go to book on all thing’s sourdough is A Perfect Loaf by Maurzio Leo and his online community newsletter and Question and Answer platform.
The first sourdough book I started with, before A Perfect Loaf was published was Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson.
For sourdough discard recipes I follow Amy Bakes Bread.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.abitofleaven.com
- Instagram: #abitofleaven
- Facebook: A Bit of Leaven
