Family micro-bakery outgrows kitchen thanks to popular sourdough

Jordan Bourne once let Betty Crocker do her baking.

“A lot of my baking was box-mix kind of things,” she said.

That changed after the birth of her third child. When 1-year-old Kilosa Jr. joined Kamauri, 12, and Khari, 3, Bourne and her husband, Kilosa, found themselves outnumbered. Bourne decided she needed something she could do for herself.

Past creative efforts had included refinishing furniture and painting. Baking, she decided, could be a family activity. It was something “I could do while having them at home and getting to participate a little bit in that,” Bourne said.

She had grown up enjoying sourdough bread, toasting it and using it to sop up soft-cooked eggs. During her pregnancies, when she developed gestational diabetes, she began buying sourdough bread at Breadsmith because it didn’t cause her blood sugar to spike. The long fermentation process means the body doesn’t have to work as hard to digest it, Bourne said.

“Most breads have commercial yeast. This is a wild yeast that occurs in your environment,” Bourne said.

She started with one jar of sourdough starter on her kitchen counter. That jar multiplied: two, three, four, five, six and finally seven.

Now, her sourdough starter fills a 5-gallon container, and Bourne’s baked goods feed many more people than her family. She started the micro-bakery Bourne Family Bakery, earlier this year. Now, her bread, cinnamon rolls and cookies are found in seven outlets and in vendor shows such as Saturday’ 605 Made Holiday Market. It will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the underground parking garage at the original Cherapa Place building in downtown Sioux Falls.

Recently, she expanded her business to include her first employee. Husband Kilosa now joins her in the bakery kitchen in their home.

“I don’t have a home kitchen anymore; it’s a bakery kitchen,” Bourne said. “In January, we plan to make it more functional. And the goal is to get a 30-quart commercial mixer by the end of the year. Right now, I’m mixing every single thing by hand. The muscles are strong, but my joints are screaming.”

Bourne is a Sioux Falls native, and her husband moved here about 15 years ago from New York state, drawn to a more affordable lifestyle. They make sure the children are their priority, she said; Bourne homeschooled for about five years.

Their youngest is home with them three to four days a week, with her mother providing child care on other days. When Bourne returns from dropping their daughter at preschool, she starts on the tasks that need to be done. On one recent day, she prepared dinner rolls, rolled up cinnamon rolls, baked brown butter chocolate chip cookies and prepared icing.

When the children are home from school, the family bakery closes for a few hours. After the kids are tucked into bed, it’s back to the kitchen. The dough needed for the next day must be mixed, then it’s two hours of kneading and folding it.

It makes for some late nights. A typical week means making 100 to 200 loaves of bread and about 150 cinnamon rolls.

“We’re not quite as micro as when we first started, and now we make a pretty good amount,” Bourne said, “but it’s not Breadsmith or Breadico volume.”

With the holidays coming up, there’s no such thing as a typical week, however. Last week set records for Bourne Family Bakery, according to a Facebook post.

Bourne’s sourdough bread and other goods can be found at Art Moms & Friends Boutique, Mulberry Market, Farmhouse Market and AMC Collective, all in Sioux Falls; The Local in Dell Rapids; Makers Exchange in Tea; and seasonally at The Country Apple Orchard. She also prepares baked goods for about 25 direct orders every week, which are picked up at her house.

Chantel Olson put out a call for makers of baked goods to offer at the Art Moms store last spring. Now, the holiday pop-up shop offers homemade Rice Krispie bars, cheesecakes, puppy chow, peanut clusters, macarons — and Bourne’s sourdough baked goods.

“You think about it, there’s not a lot of places to get fresh baked goods,” Olson said. “Rice Krispie bars, cheesecakes, it’s something fun to offer. We get a nice variety with Jordan’s bread and sometimes her cinnamon rolls or brown butter cookies.”

For more than a decade, it has been Art Moms’ mission to give area makers a place to offer their products, and baking is as much art as anything else the store offers, Olson said. Often, makers are unsure whether anyone will want what they make. It’s a confidence booster when she can call and tell them to bring in more, she said.

That happens often with Bourne Family Bakery. Its Facebook page is filled with reports of trips to restock the sourdough bread, which comes in flavors such as dill pickle and ranch, blueberry lemon, jalapeno cheddar, cranberry walnut, apple cinnamon, garlic parmesan, and pepperoni and cheese.

“I have had probably six or seven of them, and they’ve all been fantastic,” Olson said. “I love the dill pickle, it’s great with grilled cheese. I love the jalapeno cheddar and the pepperoni and cheese. It’s really fun when she tries new bread. In October, it was pumpkin and cranberry walnut. It’s definitely a special item when they’re unique like that and small batch.”

Bourne plans to bring “a little bit of everything” to the 605 Made Holiday Market. She’s also offering holiday bundles before Christmas, where customers can choose between a loaf of sourdough bread or 12 cookies or between bagels or dinner rolls, and special treats such as Chex mix and chocolate-covered pretzels. Her older children can help prepare those, and Kamauri also earns money as a dishwasher. Bourne runs her dishwasher three times a day.

She also feeds her sourdough starter once or twice a day, depending on the demands that will be placed on it. As her confidence has grown, she no longer needs to measure.

“You need about 600-ish grams of flour and 200 grams of water, and you want a pancake-batter consistency,” Bourne said. “We don’t weigh anything out anymore. We’re good at eyeballing and guessing. The basic bread recipe is 100 grams of starter, 10 grams of salt, 350 grams of water and 500 grams of bread flour. I don’t play around with it too much.”

Bourne has a list of items she wants to try when she has time, including pizza crust, biscuits and scones. “I definitely want to do brownies,” she said. “You can turn anything into a sourdough recipe. You can learn how to convert it.”

Bourne doesn’t think she was a particularly good cook before. Now, she understands the science of baking. And the best part? She gets to taste it, then make adjustments. It’s her sourdough-loving family’s favorite part too, she said.

When Bourne started making sourdough bread a year ago, she had modest goals. She wanted to remain a stay-at-home mom while bringing in a little extra money. Now, she looks at the whirlwind that has been the past 12 months and marvels at where she is today.

“Everything happens for a reason,” she said. “If something is meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

If you’re going

Bourne Family Bakery is one of more than 40 makers who will take part in this year’s 605 Made Holiday Market, which will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in the lower-level parking ramp of the original Cherapa Place building. 605 Made is organized by Knotty Gnome Variety & Salvage, Sew Doggy Boutique and SiouxFalls.Business. It is sponsored by The First National Bank in Sioux Falls and Dakota Business Finance.

605 Made Holiday Market vendor guide