Saving Bread
Saving Bread explores sourdough, grain, fermentation, craftsmanship, and the people keeping real bread alive. Join baker and educator Allison White for practical lessons and thoughtful conversations with bakers, millers, farmers, oven makers, and others shaping the future of bread.
Long live real bread.
Saving Bread
Interviews E02 Alexandra Allen - Sourdough Cookies
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What happens when you treat every ingredient like it matters?
In this episode of Saving Bread, I sit down with Alexandra Allen of Wildwoman Bakery to explore how freshly milled grains can completely transform sourdough baking—from cookies and pastries to naturally leavened breads.
We dive into how Alex thinks about flour selection, butter, vanilla, levain behavior, and ingredient quality to build flavor from the ground up. Whether you're curious about baking with fresh-milled flour or looking for new ways to bring creativity into your sourdough baking, this conversation is full of practical ideas and inspiration.
In this episode we discuss:
- Baking sourdough cookies with freshly milled grains
- Choosing butter for flavor and texture
- Making homemade vanilla extract
- Understanding levain behavior
- Developing recipes with whole grains
- Building flavor through thoughtful ingredient choices
- Finding your own creative voice as a baker
Alex's approach reminds us that great bread—and great baking—isn't just about following a formula. It's about understanding your ingredients and letting curiosity guide the process.
You can find Alexandra on Instagram @wildwomanbakery, and if you're in Arkansas, you can find her sourdough pastries and baked goods at the Fayetteville Farmers Market.
Hi friends, welcome back to the Saving Bread Podcast. Today we have an interview with someone who is near and dear to my heart, Alexandra Allen, sweet Alex from Wild Woman Bakery on Instagram. We talk about cookies, we talk about flour selection, we talk about building different lavans with different types of flour and making your own vanilla extract. And I know that you are going to walk away from this interview feeling inspired, excited, and ready to hop into your bakery and try something new. I'm Alison White, and this is Saving Bread. So, hi I am like actually kind of starstruck seeing you and chatting with you because I we're we are actually friends, but we I have been following you for so long now, and I have just been in awe of your bakes since the beginning, and you are like one of my North Star bakers. So I feel so excited to have you here with me, Alex, and chat with me. And I just can't thank you enough for being willing to share your time with us.
SPEAKER_01I feel completely honored that you, I mean, months ago I remember you asking me saying that you were going to get into the world of podcasting and you were interested in doing it, and you you had asked me, would you be willing to be on it? And I was like, for you, yes, you know. That's so sweet. No, but I think we both um I didn't go as far in the nutrition field, but that was always what my major was going to be had I stayed in uh four-year university. And I think we both have we're very similar when it comes to wanting to dial things in exact and knowing nutritional value and knowing how it reacts into our bodies and having that science background, like having that appreciation for science and then the balance of creativity. So I always had this interconnectedness with you because I was like, that's my girl. She wants to perfect this and she wants to focus, she wants to dial in one thing and do it right.
SPEAKER_00That's all it's true, and I think that we sort of bonded over that early on, and you've always been so generous with sharing information with me and in the beginning, because you know, sometimes it can be a little bit weird to be like, hi, you don't know me, but how did you make this cookie? And you were just so nice, so kind, so open, like no gatekeeping in any way, shape, or form. And I really appreciated that.
SPEAKER_01Well, you were very different from the usual that one will get, which is recipe, question mark. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So, you know, and also I'm wearing your shirt, by the way. I thought, I thought, I love it.
SPEAKER_01You're so cute. Um, I love it so much. Uh, I can't wait to get your merch. I saw you're in the process of getting that.
SPEAKER_00It's coming as soon as it's um approved. I will send you all the things. Yeah. So let's get into it. Yeah, let's do it.
SPEAKER_01Let's do it.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So you, well, I found you because of your cookies, which I feel like you're very well known for. Yeah. Um, but everything you make from your tea cakes, your muffins, to I hope I'm pronouncing this right, the sourdough gâteau.
SPEAKER_01Ghetto, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Tell us, tell us kind of how this started. Tell us the origin story of Wild Woman.
SPEAKER_01So, Wild Woman Bakery started. The name started not as long as the actual engagement with Instagram and wanting to basically find a way to incorporate sourdough treats, desserts 100% naturally leavened. It began probably 15 years ago. I was living in Portland, Oregon, and I was very much so inspired by a lot of different bakeries there. And I also wanted to just make treats that made me feel good in terms of digestibility and being able for, you know, if you eat a whole cookie, you don't want to feel like crap after. You really want to feel like you're indulging in something, able to enjoy it, and also be like, wow, that made me feel great after. Like, I feel good. And I just treated myself to this 200 gram cookie, and I don't feel like crap. So Wild Woman Bakery started because I didn't really see any sourdough cookies on the market 15 years ago. And I remember people asking me in the very beginning, like, it was like, wow, sourdough cookies never heard of that. Sourdough tea cakes, like, I always have to use baking powder or baking soda to make my things rise. So it really became where I would research and try to develop. I would work on one thing, and I would say that my cookies were the first thing that I really just wanted to focus on that one thing, that one sweet treat, and make it how I would want to experience it in a really well-known bakery. I used to live in San Francisco 23 years ago, and me and my fellow uh workmates would all go to tartine in the mission pretty much every week, three or four times a week. And I remember seeing and saying to myself, like, man, if they had like a sourdough cookie on the menu, that would be just like baller. And so it just became my whole, I would say it was like my persona became this sourdough cookie. I didn't want to incorporate any leavening agents, so I started very basic. I started with a sugar cookie. The less you have to include, the less variables you have to worry about. So I started with a sugar cookie that was an eincorn that I bought from the company Jovial, because at that time I didn't have a mill and I didn't have access to a place that would grind me up, some flour. And at that time, you could buy wheat berries at the Portland farmer's market, but I didn't have a mock mill. So I said, let me start with this. And I started, and there were so many fails because they literally would spread all over the place. There's so many things that you have to worry about, whether it's the hydration, how long you're sitting it at room temperature to allow for it to ferment, um, what butter you're using. So I found American-made butters didn't work very well. Even Plugra, I have issues with because if you've ever tried browning Pleugre next to Kerrygold, you can immediately smell the difference.
SPEAKER_00That's interesting. I I had never thought about my butter as such an important ingredient in the cookies. And what I'm hearing you say is, and I think this is why we are similar, you have this calling and you have this idea, and it almost becomes, for lack of a better term, an obsession. Yeah, it's absolutely where you have to figure it out, you have to solve the puzzle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a challenge, right? And we like it. We wouldn't be bakers if we didn't like a good challenge, you know? That's right.
SPEAKER_00So you're saying that Wild Woman was born through this deep desire to make a truly deep obsession. Yeah. To make a truly fermented sourdough cookie with whole grains.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And something that when you ate it, you felt good after, and you knew where the things you knew what was in it. You knew that in the whole cookie recipe, there are seven ingredients, and that is it from start to finish. And you can pronounce everything, you know where it's coming from, whether I'm making the cultured butter, whether I'm buying really good carry gold, or I'm finding, I mean, I even was trying and testing out this uh Italian butter that makes the same burrata. I found it was a little too cheesy, you know. But my daughters are like, what's baking in there?
SPEAKER_00Aren't children the best critics?
SPEAKER_01Oh, listen, they will tell you will know if your farmer's market sales or your you know bake day sales are gonna skyrocket if your kids tell you it's a home run. Because they're your pickiest critics.
SPEAKER_00They will not spare your feelings. Yeah. So are most of your bakes then 100% whole grain? And when they're not, what do you what are some of the other flowers you might be choosing? What does that look like for you?
SPEAKER_01Sure. If I state, for example, whatever I'm um stating is 100% fresh mill, they are always 100% fresh milled. Wow. If I do something that's let's say um 70%, for example, all of my short bread, 100% fresh milled, all of my brown butter dark chocolate, 100%. Um I am milling and I am mixing in the same day. So it's very different, like when you're doing bread some days. Sometimes you will let your flour kind of rest for a day or two after you've milled it because of the activity and everything. But with cookies, you want that activity. Um, it's all about balancing your liquid to your flour and really testing. So when I started, like I said, I started with eincorn and then I went on to spelt, but I focus on one specific flour at a time because every flour, even in bread and cookies, they react differently. Some are thirsty and they want more brown butter or they want more egg yolk or they want more vanilla extract, and some don't. Some you can work a little drier. So I like to use also an AP from Carolina Ground. Uh their AP is just gorgeous. I believe it's an 85 extraction, and it is just beautiful. So whenever I want to mix in, because I love Carolina Ground, I love Barton Springs Mill, which is uh in Texas. So they're the closest to me in terms of hours. They're like four and a half hours away. And then I have Janie's Mill, which is in it is in Illinois, and my husband's gonna be there next week. He's actually gonna drop them off some of my shortbread because they are just incredible, amazing. You know, just you can feel that they're family. So I use those three mills. I've also used in the past, Bredtobia has a lot of grains that I love. Okay. Um, a lot of Sonora. They have a Pima wheat that I use, a Pima grain from a tribe in Arizona that I love. And it's a very golden wheat, very similar in terms of the look like Sonora, but a little longer. And it has a really toasty, nutty, almost like a blonde flavor to it.
SPEAKER_00I am imagining all of our listeners right now literally sprinting to get a pen and paper and ferociously writing all of this down. I hope everyone understands the level of. I know, because my Miami comes out and I start talking. No, I just more as like this is invaluable information. And I feel like you're giving us so you're being so generous with your information right now. Like I'm very excited about it.
SPEAKER_01I would definitely say like people need to focus, especially when they're starting out on the sweet side, is focus on one or two grains at a time and really incorporate if their base is, let's say, 80% AP, if they can find a good AP that has like anyone that does uh stone mill grains, um, their AP is gonna be luscious, it's gonna be nutty, it's gonna be, you know, blended with different browns and caramely notes, like it just looks different than your roller mill AP.
SPEAKER_00You just said something that I didn't even consider, which is that all-purpose flour doesn't necessarily have to be like a white, tiny sifted flour. It can be something else.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Like a Carolina Grounds AP is gorgeous. I mean, if you put it next to my, especially when I clean my mock mill and I get the stones really very close to each other, and I'm able to get it to where the the extraction is just beautifully powdery, it's just beautiful. You can't really tell. Like, you're like, wow, like it looks like Carolina Ground is mine. You know what I mean? In the sense of what the colors look like. But I love I love Jen Lapidish. She is the owner of that mill, and she's a baker before she was a miller, so the passion is there.
SPEAKER_00She is the reason that I make sourdough bread. That was the first book that I owned. And I I too bought a green mill and whole greens, and I was like, let's go. Yeah, let's go.
SPEAKER_01Because I think as bakers, we have this artistic side, and so we really want to create this flavor profile that is unique, and it's like that that it starts with like this imagination of what we want to give, and we want to see the person have an experience, and that experience be like fireworks, you know, where it's like, holy crap, this is amazing. I've never tasted anything like this. How do you and when I tell people at the market? I have to explain. Oh, it has a PR team, yeah. Eincorn and spell, you know. They have a great PR team. Yes. I think you're you're able to do so much when you're when you have this advantage of all these beautiful grains, and that really is my passion. Like being able to give you something, because a roller mill white flour to me doesn't taste like anything. And I can usually taste when a bakery, if I go anywhere to travel, we always look for bakeries on our way. I can usually tell if it's like 80%, and then they'll use like a whole wheat in there that is just a generic Cisco whole wheat. And I'm just like, it just lay lies flat in flavor.
SPEAKER_00And uh when you're making these blends of whole greens, because you are often blending them, right? Yeah, yeah. Uh how are you thinking about the balance between the different flavors? What are you kind of imagining as you're mixing these things in your bakery?
SPEAKER_01I think I I think at the end of the day, for each specific thing, it's like you go back to what you remember, like a classic shortbread is very buttery. It's very, it's almost like a very light, toasty waffle cone. Like it's got these notes. So you're going for me, I'm going back to childhood nostalgia. And then I'm trying to give you like the souped-up version that's gonna be the nutritional powerhouse. And so I I tend to lean towards what is what my recollection is of when I was younger, of what I wanted. Like when I traveled, when we were growing up and we we had the luxury of traveling, I remember stepping into a bakery in Spain and being like, wow, this is what bread smells like, and seeing a mill, seeing all these things. So for me, it's nostalgia mixed with my education through the years of educating myself in terms of in the bread world, also having hands-on experience, traveling overseas to the UK, being at the sourdough school, all these different things, and connecting everything and being like, this is what I want you to taste. Like if you try my gâteau, depending on the flour, it's going to be completely different. If I use a rye, like an Abruzzi rye that I get from Carolina Ground, and I use, let's say, a Sonora from Arizona, you're gonna get like these molasses notes in the gâteau. You're gonna get these caramely notes that wouldn't exist if I was just using a waterlog spelt. Because to me, spelt is very basic. It's almost like it doesn't have a lot of depth on its own. I think it's a nice flower, but I think it needs other things like a red fife that has toasty notes, or from Janie's mill, I use a Frederick flower, which has like it, it has like these, it just smells grassy, it smells different, it smells like you're in the field and you can breathe the air.
SPEAKER_00It's just it's like the way you're describing this is beautiful, and all these other greens need you on their PR team. You said something that was very relatable to me, and again, I hope our listeners are just soaking up every single word. They're gonna come out of your mouth because they're they're learning today. I one of my recipes that I'm most proud of is not something that I actually make for my customers, it's and something that we've bonded over, and they're my whole grain sourdough tortillas. Right. And I made that, it almost makes me emotional to think about it because I grew up eating tortillas off the streets of Old Town in San Diego as a dollar for two tortillas, and it's a core memory for me. And when I wanted to make those for myself at home with sourdough, I needed to play around with different flavors of different whole wheat, different hydration, but I was recreating a memory, and that's what made it so delicious. Yeah. Yeah. How can I tell a story through something that I'm making by choosing things that are growing around me and kind of reliving that memory and making it part of my present in a way that speaks to who I am and what I care about. And I think that's where real creativity and real accomplishments begin in the bakery.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. And it's like you knew what you were going after when you wanted to recreate it. It's like those core memories, you smell a lot of smells, connect those emotional memories that will just like bring you back to five, seven, eight years old, and you're like, wow, I want this back. And it's like you're chasing uh a texture, you're chasing the elasticity of that tortilla, you're chasing the way when you look through it, you can see through it, the thinness, like everything about it. You can roll it up if it can be eaten on its own, you know, you've strung gold.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. I love that. That's a really beautiful way to think about it. Not trying to necessarily always be creating something new, right? Chasing this like newness, but actually looking backward and looking inward to create something unique to you, to you as a baker and tell your unique story. Um, I think that's really beautiful and and makes me feel emotional because that is what separates someone who's kind of just going through the motions of baking and maybe doesn't feel connected to their product to someone who's really like, this is my heart and my soul, and this is everything.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Our passion is what drives us. The challenge, the passion to be part of this community and to be part of your community. When you give, when you bake with your heart, with your soul, with your mind, with everything, you can taste it. You can and I I love like when I know that someone is gonna go home and they're gonna share this with their family, with their friends, they're gonna buy a few cookies at the market, and they're gonna they usually tell me they cut them eat into four pieces and they make like a little like tasting. And I love that because then I know everyone is gonna be number one, so happy and they're gonna feel the love because we do it out of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00It's so true, and it's and it's an extension of ourselves. Absolutely. And is it okay if I ask you a couple of technical things? Because I know that the people who are listening are going to, they're going to want to try to do this. They're very inspired by you, but they might not really know what to do. Because I think when you've not worked with any whole grains, it can feel very overwhelming. And you've kind of described that process of like tons of failures, which I think is something every baker truly needs to go through and be really comfortable with is failure. But if you could give our listeners just maybe like one or two tips of what you've learned so that they kind of have a starting point if they're like, tomorrow I want to find the closest person to me that's growing whole grains. I'm gonna buy a bag and I'm gonna try to put these grains into a cookie for my customers. Like, how can we help them do that?
SPEAKER_01So I would definitely say start out with a small percentage. Okay. And start out with take your base recipe and maybe include 30%, versus a lot of times people jump off and do 50 to 60, and it really kind of um makes their cookies either too hard or it makes their cookies become almost soupy, depending on what grains they're using. Okay. Um, so I would say take your base recipe, and if in your base recipe you were to use 400 grams of flour, let's say it was a roller mill or even a stone. Ground flour that you could find. If you wanted to incorporate fresh milk flour, I would use 30%. So I'm not very good at math. I usually have to use my calculator. Oh, so let's say I would do, I would honestly maybe do 100 grams of a fresh milk flour and then let's say 300 grams. And also don't change too many variables. Yes. But I would say a second tidbit, if a flower looks thirsty, add an egg yolk. Egg yolk. Fatness. Fat. I wanted to say fat and richness. You can put that in there. My fatness is flowing. So I should have a chicken farmer with how many local eggs I buy. So um you want to add an egg yolk because I see a lot of recipes that use just like let's say one egg, and I'm always like, add an egg yolk or two if you're adding a lot of fresh milk flour. Because that flour wants it's a great tip. Yeah, wants it. It craves it, it needs it. And sometimes people will use maybe not the highest quality butter, and it has more water, so then it allows for more spreadage. So a European butter, you know, try using a European butter. Try using even, for example, I believe it's the Vermont. Correct me if I'm wrong, Vermont creamery is a cultured butter, and I have found great results using that butter as well. Great. I also do a method that is I will brown my butter. I know this is this is for the person that is a little extra like myself and we love doesn't like doesn't like to sleep. But um You love it extra baker. So I brown my butter gently. Okay, I let it get nice and toasty, then I allow it to sit on the countertop, and I add the brown sugar that I'm going to use in the recipe into that butter. Then I stick it in the fridge, I take it out, I let it go room temp, just a little, and then I cream it. So you have the brown butter, brown sugar creamed method, which actually allows for it not to go haywire when it's spreading as well because you've then chilled those milk solids once again.
SPEAKER_00So this is the science brain coming out right now. You make it, that's the thing though, you make it look so easy on your Instagram. It's just beautiful and the music and the lighting. I always know it's yours when it pops up. I'm like, oh god, I feel relaxed. I feel like I'm on vacation. But behind the scenes, you're like, I know that if I put this in the fridge, these solids will be like you know the science, you know the nutrition.
SPEAKER_01We have a very analytical brain, so it's just analyzing. My family always says, Alex, can you just turn it off? You know?
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, I can't, I can't. I love it so much because when we see your I think when anyone sees videos like yours, because you make it look so easy, someone might think, well, I can just I can just go do that. But oof, the amount of work that it takes, right? Behind it.
SPEAKER_01And I would start with one basic recipe. One recipe, like I said, include 30% fresh milk flour. Keep your base recipe the same. If you do anything, add an extra egg yolk, you know. A lot of times people also skimp on the vanilla extract, and you really need that. You need that extract, vanilla beans, everything. You're just you're layering these flavors, and at the end of the day, uh, the oven also affects things too. So the oven can actually make vanilla extract evaporate. So that's why I add the bean. So yeah, it's we'll get there.
SPEAKER_00I want to talk about that for sure because that's another thing I'm very impressed by. Can I ask you for your for let's just stick with cookies because I think that's a relatable thing to talk about? You're using sourdough starter, as you mentioned, and no other leavening agents. For people who might not know what that means. That means no baking soda, no baking powder. You're relying on the sourdough. And are you keeping your starter a special way for sweet bakes, or is it just a typical sourdough starter that everyone kind of starts?
SPEAKER_01So it's always a starter that is active. It is always an active starter. I would say it varies in the hydration. So I usually keep mine about 85% hydration, and if I'm using it, I will use it within one or two hours of the window that it's peaking. I find that it doesn't really change, and I've never ever, I've I've actually never used for sale a discard recipe because I really do feel because I'm using it at such a high hydration for me, because I have used a sweet stiff starter uh in other things, but I never use a sweet stiff starter in my cookies. It is always a sourdough starter at 85% hydration, and most of the time I'm keeping it fed with my AP from Carolina Grounds. It clocks pretty fast. I have a different temperature here than I did in Florida, so my house runs cool, and so my kitchen can be anywhere between 65 and 70, so it's not gonna rise as you know rapidly. Now, in the winter time, I keep my house really cold. And so my starter in the winter time, it takes a little bit to kind of get there, but I usually put it in my oven with my oven light on and maybe like a little bit of water that has been boiled just to give it a little bit of humidity and warmth. Yeah. But I I play around with the different things that I feed. I have, for example, if you if I were to take you to my kitchen right now, I have probably 15 jars of starters for different cookie recipes at one time. My sourdough Oreos take a starter that is 100% eincorn and only 50, 50% hydration.
SPEAKER_00Okay, now we are talking. So this is interesting because this is going to so the way that I'm structuring this podcast is behind the scenes I have lessons episodes where we talk about the mechanics of sourdough. Right. And my second episode, which will come out just before this one, which is great timing, okay, talks about different hydrations for sourdough starters and how we can change the flour in our lavan to go into a specific recipe. So what you're saying is you make a quote unquote lavan, something that's going into a dough, and you're choosing both the hydration and the type of grain that you're using based off of the product that you're making in the cookie.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Absolutely. Great. Yeah, so like for my Oreos, they have a different texture, they're not your normal spready chocolate chip cookie or snickerdoodle, even a snickerdoodle is a whole nother ballpark. That's a whole nother layer of because you don't want, I don't use cream of tartar. So I want that acidity from actually two different starters. So in my Snickerdoodles, I do a Pima and a Sonora flour starter, both at 60% hydration, and then I get them right at peak. Like right everything is timed, but yeah, with an Oreo, you want a very stiff starter. Very so I would say of a 50% is pretty stiff in terms of when you reach it, when you get it, it's not at all watery, and also every recipe.
SPEAKER_00So this is so cool and so interesting. I'm gosh, this is really a fun conversation and has opened up my mind to something I had not thought thought about as far as the type of flour in the Levan for the And that's adding flavor, you know? That's right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's adding flavor. So that you you almost like use it like when you think of it like a painting, sometimes you they'll do a base on the back that's let's say a white or a tan, and bringing that into what it is like what is my base flavor gonna be, and what am I gonna add to it on top? Because I feel like the Levan is what gives a lot of the flavor. If you use like a rye, you know, you're gonna taste it. You're gonna taste it immediately.
SPEAKER_00This this has my mind just going a million miles a minute because it's so interesting. Can I ask you? So I think that there's a lot of chit chat out in the Instagram world, and some of it's positive, and some some of it makes me think more deeply, and some of it, you know, I push to the side. But one thing that I see come up frequently is a conversation of can you really make a sourdough cookie? And what what is your thought on that? Like, how do you describe that as truly sourdough? Is it because you don't have any leavening agents? Is it because you're properly fermenting it? Like, if someone is going to call something a sourdough cookie is what I'm trying to say, right? But they have other leavening agents in it or it hasn't been properly fermented, then it's almost not named correctly and it's not a transparent conversation with a customer. So, what does that look like for you?
SPEAKER_01So when it comes to that, I would say the reason that I identify my cookies as sourdough is because they are 100% leavened. When they're on the counter and they're fermenting there, they are there between six and eight hours, and then they are in the fridge a minimum of seven to fifteen days. I have had sourdough cookies in my fridge for nine months in dough form in a pillow that have been the best cookies I have had in my life.
SPEAKER_00So I took um, this is a total side note, whether we keep it in or not is fine, but um I took a class with uh Thomas Tefri Chambellon. I hope I'm saying that French word correctly. That's right. And that's kind of what opened my mind, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I asked him the same question, and I was thinking about you when I asked the question because I was just so curious, and I was like, tell me how does how does one do this? And his answer was if it is fermented for a long time at a cold temperature, yeah, then there is just something that happens at those very slowly, right? The bacteria are there and they're moving slowly, but they're doing their job. Yeah, it does take time, but it it can happen.
SPEAKER_01It's like any, like when you think of like cheeses, charcuterie, anything like that, it's transforming. The you know, the lactobacillus is working in such a way with the fresh mealed flour, with the butter, you know, especially if you're adding, if you're making it with cultured butter as well, that's another thing. It's just like you're layering these live, active, delicious bacterias on top of each other. Great chocolate as well. Chocolate is also fermented, cocoa. So the longer it ages in the fridge, no cookie that I make is less than, and I tell this to all of my clients too, no less than nine days in my fridge that it sits there in those pillows. I have one dedicated pillow fridge that currently has 45 pillows in it.
SPEAKER_00You know, I love that you call it a pillow. And because it's usual.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00So this is important because I think there's a lot of people throwing around the name sourdough cookie. Right. Or sourdough muffin or whatever. Right. Brown something that has discard in it. Yeah, yeah. It's not truly active sourdough that has been fermented for many, many days in the fridge or aged many days in the fridge. And so I think naming things is important and transparency with our customers is important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I think it's false advertisement. And I appreciate something that you do, which is you call something hybrid if it has a pinch of yeast and it has sourdough as well. Because you know what? Both are doing things. One may be speeding up because I have the biggest headaches with my sourdough brioche. They take anywhere between 18 and 28 hours to ferment, even in a proofer. So if I and that's another world that I haven't really delved into because it's just I haven't I haven't had the chance, the time to really dedicate. But I know that you sell these most gorgeous cinnamon rolls and they have the flavor profile of sourdough because there is sourdough in there, but there is also a pinch of active yeast, so you're not waiting 20-something hours. So you can give your customers the experience of having a hybrid product that has some nutritional value of something that also has fresh milk flour and stuff, but you're also transparent about it, and the appreciation is there.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah, and sometimes people don't know what they don't know. Like I'll give some people the benefit of the doubt, but it is important, yeah, especially right now for all of us in this sort of micro bakery movement that's happening, to be really, really transparent with your customers about what you're doing and what's in the food that they're eating. Yeah. 100%, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I am I am that. How do you say? I am a purist. So the way that I am, if I were to start adding yeast into some of my things, I would you would be hearing me say it a billion times, like, and I just want you to know that I am experimenting with this. Yeah, because it's like my soul, you know, right?
SPEAKER_00Of course. Yeah. And it's also, we don't have the best naming system for things here in the United States compared to other places. But I think it's a good I think it's a good call to action to say, hey, you know what? I never thought about that before. I didn't know that you could put cookies in the fridge for nine days. Now I'm gonna try that and see how it goes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I always explain to people at the market, they especially being here in Arkansas, there has been this education that I have had to give people in the sense of they didn't know that you could put sourdough in a cookie, they didn't know that it works differently in your system. The absorption is a lot slower versus something like a chips of ahoy that you have, and you're gonna bounce off the walls, and in 10 minutes you're gonna feel like you crash. It's it's been a it's been a roller coaster.
SPEAKER_00You so you make other things in your ingredients as well. I've noticed on your Instagram that you make marshmallows, cultured butter. Oh my gosh, you make your own vanilla extract. Like you have just gone above and beyond to really think about all the levels of flavor. Tell us first of all why you do that. I might kind of know the answer now after having chatted for a little bit, but tell me more about that.
SPEAKER_01I think it comes from wanting to really be the one that is able to dictate what the flavor profile at the end of the day is gonna taste like. So a lot of times I would taste different vanillas and they would taste almost artificial. And if actually you look, even in high-quality vanillas, they're adding vanilla and they're adding other flavorings to them. They're adding sugar, they're adding gums, they're adding emulsifiers. So I really wanted to be very intentional and specific. So I love bourbon, and I remember I guess it was a marketing thing, bourbon vanilla, right? So I just said, I I don't really consume much alcohol, but I said, wow, if I were, I love the smell of this bourbon. So I wanted to infuse vanilla beans. And my birthday five years ago, my dad gifted me like 350 vanilla beans from Madagascar. Gorgeous. The biggest vanilla beans I'd ever seen, this big, I think they were eight to nine inches, and they were grade A. You would split them open, and the perfume, I mean, even from outside the vacuum seal bag. So I experimented and I went a little Alex crazy, and each Elijah Craig bottle, I probably put 50 to 55 beans in each one. And I mean, the aromaticness of that vanilla and just the flavor because you don't have to add as much, even though in every recipe I'm probably adding between 40 and 70 grams of vanilla extract, which is a lot. It's a lot, it's not it's not for the faint of heart, and it's not good for the the pocketbook. It's the experience I want you to have. I want you to taste one of my cookies and be like, wow, this tastes like vanilla bean ice cream from the best ice cream maker or the best creamery. And then, in terms of like marshmallows, wanting to really create because I experimented in the beginning with adding just your own, let's say, craft marshmallows, and they dissolve, they evaporate, they become this sticky mess, and they don't do what you want them to do. So you'll see a lot of bakers, they will just plop a marshmallow on top and they will torch them. And I'm just like, that's cool. Listen, if that does the job, and at the end of the day, your client base is happy because to tell you the truth, 98% of people are gonna be happy with whatever they get. Right. You know, it's me. I am the problem.
SPEAKER_00This is so great because I was really inspired by your marshmallows, and I was like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna make my own marshmallows. Just thinking it it can't how it let me just track me. No, it was I was messaging you, I'm like, I need so much help. I don't understand. Like, yours look perfect, mine are soup. Like, it just I couldn't do it, it was not happening. So I so admire just your dedication to each step of the process. And you don't, you haven't just perfected cookies, you perfected making the vanilla for the cookie, the marshmallows for the cookie, like the cultured butters for the cookie. Every step of the way you have mastered so that you can, as you said, put out this product and fully stand behind it and just have it be an extension of yourself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's been it's it's definitely it's a passion project when it's a project for life. And I I just I wanna, I would say, in many ways, I grew up in a very foodie and we still are. We're we are the worst family in the sense of my mom's gonna hear this and be like, what do you mean? We are the worst family in the sense of when we are sitting at dinner, we cannot just enjoy the dinner. We are critiquing every single aspect of the meal that is presented in front of us. And I recently went to Italy and I lived in California for quite some time. And the whole time I was there, I was like, these Italians, they just do it right. You take an ingredient that is perfect in its time. California does the same thing because these Italian immigrants went to California. They're the reason why California, in a lot of ways, is what it is. Whether it's the olives, whether it's the tomatoes, whether it's the grains, it's basically the farmers who have said, This is when you need to eat this product, this is when you should enjoy it, and and leave it in its simplest form. Let's not destroy something. So that's why when I go back to my cookies, I only want something that has seven or eight ingredients. I don't want to like reinvent the wheel. Some of the best cookies I had when I was in Italy, in fact, in this food show, there were these two older ladies that me and my sister were joking around. Yes. I saw that. That's me. That's me. Four ingredients. I think it's amaretto, uh, ground Sicilian almonds, powdered sugar, egg whites. The best cookie of my life. The best, and I have been, you should see me. My feed right now is these Italian old ladies on my for youth page. It's just golden doodles and Italian old ladies making these amaretti cookies that have been around since 1817. And I've been in the background trying to perfect this because I want to bring it to my market, but you have to bake it that they have to eat it that same day because we were eating it right off the press. And I said to my sister, this is the best thing I have had in this entire food show. I mean, something as simple as this. Right. We weren't reinventing anything. It was the beautiful Sicilian almonds, it was egg whites that were whipped to perfection, the powdered sugar that was gently dusted in, and and the amaretti that is poured at such a perfection that everything is like this whipped cloud, baked at a temperature, and just chopped off this uh how do you say this baking sheet and eaten warm? And I was like, I'm done. I can die now. I told my sister that I'm like, I'm done. Just roll me into a field here in Florence.
SPEAKER_00It's great because it's almost circling back to the beginning of this conversation. Which was keep it simple and do it well. Yeah. And allow it to evoke a memory and a feeling. Yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01100%. Like if I had an Italian Nona, I would want to be by her all day long eating those on a little step stool. Um, but definitely it's it's all about, like you said, simplicity and and the product is beautiful on its own. Let's not mask the product. So that's also like going back to like the vanilla and the marshmallow and stuff like that. If I know something is gonna take away from the flavor, like for example, the interior of my homemade Oreos, I was really trying to see because a feeling of an Oreo, the what we think of an Oreo, almost tastes like a very sweet buttercream that's thinned out just a little and it's it's frosted. So I I took mine to the next level in the sense of I do what's a I take hot cream and I pour it over these it's called velvet white chocolate, and it's so pure, and then I put one vanilla bean and I let that steep, and then I chill it overnight after it's mixed. I chill it, then I whip it, and it's the most luscious thing. My kids have been eating it for like three days, and it I mean, it's just unreal.
SPEAKER_00Unreal. After this conversation, I will be looking at real estate next door to you.
SPEAKER_02Girl, the land is good when the land is circumcise, is next level. It is beautiful. I started packing.
SPEAKER_00I started packing in the middle of this conversation.
SPEAKER_02Hey Mike!
SPEAKER_00We need to move immediately. Oh my gosh. Okay, back to bread. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you my rapid woodfire questions, specifically tailored for you, my love. And my first question is what is your favorite cookie right now?
SPEAKER_01Favorite cookie right now would be my nine grand shortbread. It is just unbelievable. It is so simple yet so complex in so many ways. It it really is the one that shocks everyone. And like yesterday we had a baker's market and it was the one we had a communal box that people a pre-order box that everyone, every baker put in something, and it was the one thing that I picked because I don't often bring it to the market, but people that I have sold it to, they're the ones that are like, I would love a custom order of 48 of them, you know, or a hundred of them. So they're the ones that they know I don't they're more tedious, so I have to make the dough. So it's an all-fresh meal, nine grains. These nine grains all come specifically from Janie's mill, and so it's only in the recipe is the fresh meal flour, homemade brown sugar, two vanilla beans, a little bit of powdered sugar, and sea salt from Italy, and that's it, it's five ingredients. The dough has to sit on the counter for 30 minutes at a specific temperature. Then I have to roll it in between two parchment in such a way that it is like I don't know, the half-inch thickness. Yeah, then it has to sit in the fridge for 24 hours, then it has to be brought out and left to chill for 30 minutes, and each one has to be stamped and then baked at 300 degrees for 42 minutes. So they're $500 a cookie. And my my kids, that's their favorite. They're like, mom, you know, you make all these cookies, but your shortbread is my favorite, you know.
SPEAKER_00I love a shortbread cookie because again, it brings me back to those blue and white tins that we all had just like around the house for some reason during my own. When I never had cookies when we were looking for them. Yeah. With like a sewing kit or whatever, and you're like, what the hell? Rim. It's like receipts. Knick-knag tatty rags. Yeah. That's what it reminds me of. And I I love a short bread. I hope I get to try yours one day because that sounds so good. And I will gladly pay $500 a cookie. Okay, this is another thing I love about your Instagram. What's your favorite coffee or tea order right now? Oh, girl.
SPEAKER_01So I'm a flat white girl. Um, I love a good flat white. Um, we have a great, we have a lot of great coffee shops. I'm very specific. I don't like acidic coffees. Um, I like them to be strong. I like them extra hot. And so my order is a flat white with one half shot of vanilla simple syrup. Um, I go to a place here called Onyx. I get a uh Geo, which is their geometry blend. And so extra hot brevet flat white with a half shot of homemade vanilla bean simple syrup that they make, and that's it.
SPEAKER_00I hope your customers are listening and that they're going to bring that to you at the next market. Please remember her order and please bring it to her while she's cooking.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna have like 20. Yeah. I'm not gonna sleep for four days. Yeah, you can just put them all on ice and you'll just have ice lattes for the next one. 25 pillow more. Okay, what is a bakery that you think deserves more love? This is hard.
SPEAKER_01I'm going to have to say right now, my favorite bakery in the world is reunion in Denver, Colorado. It's Mael de Sosa is like the most incredible. If you think I am sweet, genuine, heartfill, all these things, this man is just amazing. Amazing. He brings his Venezuelan flair with his French pastry knowledge, with just his Latin vibes. It's just incredible. His layers, his pastista nata, they are just have you ever had a pastista nata?
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_01So take it, it's a very little tiny tart that is uh originally from Portugal, and inside is like almost like a creme brulee filling. So nata means cream, pastes is basically like the pastry. This shell of his pastry shatters in your mouth a thousand layers of croissant, and then the inside, and it's always he always has them going every 15 minutes, so you get to enjoy it warm. And then on top is like this gorgeous, uh like a Bass cheesecake top that has it's just unreal. So the top is is it has this caramelization, the inside is this warm custard, and the shell of it is my husband. Every time he goes to Denver, he brings us back 16 of them, and we each get four and they reheat beautifully. That is true love. He is he's an amazing so reunion bakery. If you're ever in Denver, Colorado, he just opened up an um a bigger brick and mortar that is just I can't wait to go visit him. His breads are amazing, and to bake at altitude is a whole nother level. So he baked hour at altitude, everything. Um, he uses a lot of local grains from Colorado, but this stuff blows me away. Blows me away.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, that'll give me something to look forward to if I ever end up out there. But I have a friend that travels out there frequently, so I'll ask her to bring some back for me now.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, yes. I'll tell her to bring me four. Yes, you can bring you four that way. You'll want five because mama's gonna want one the dame up and the next morning.
SPEAKER_00So I feel like this is gonna be my last quickie question, and then I'll ask you my closing question. I know the answer to this question because I I know you at this point, and we're we're friends, and I I stalk you heavily on Instagram. But um, what is your favorite bread tin?
SPEAKER_01My favorite bread tin are Campbell's bread tins. Campbell, I call him the wizard. He is just the most amazing, wonderful. We really do have a lot of amazing gems in this in this bread community, and I would say he is like the MacDaddy master of just I is it welding. He creates these vessels that we can bake in that are just industrial, and the home baker gets to preview something that you would use in a huge brick and mortar bakery. That's right. So well done. I remember when I started using Campbell's stuff years ago being like, finally, something that doesn't corrode, something that I can use over and over and over. And there's so much thought, and he is so precise about everything, but I absolutely adore. I remember he would ask me, like, what should I do next? Or what should I, what is something that you guys want and need? And if there's anything that you ever truly need, this man really bends himself backwards to give you what you want. That's right. And create it out of also, he does everything out of love. And he is such a, he's also, I believe, a baker as well as just this wizard magician that can just really pull out of his hat these amazing tins and these focaccia pans. And I I I love him.
SPEAKER_00He's awesome. So, Alex, I spoke to him right before our chat. No way. Yes, and he told me he spoke so kindly of you. Oh and he told me to tell you hello, and he's so thankful for you as well.
SPEAKER_01So I adore him, I just adore him so much, and he's he's amazing in this bread world. And I I hope that every homebaker gets a tin from him, gets something of his. His bread knife is what I use on the daily. It's just like his bocaccia tin. I do so many things in it. I don't have to worry when I'm baking my cinnamon rolls. I'm like, they're not gonna burn. Everything's gonna be great. But I really think the world of him and I dream of, you know what we should do? You know what we should do? We should plan a trip to the UK, girlfriend.
SPEAKER_00I'm in. We'll do a podcast about it. Exactly. It'll be a write-off for us. I love it.
SPEAKER_01We should and visit some bakeries out there and go see him. I mean, I really think that would be incredible.
SPEAKER_00I know so too. Okay, so this is my closing question for you and for everyone that I'm inviting onto the podcast. And again, thank you so much for agreeing.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having me, girlfriend.
SPEAKER_00So, this podcast is called Saving Bread, but that's kind of a broad idea of keeping the craft of making baked goods by hand alive and well, ideally with local whole grains and local ingredients. And what does that mean to you? And what do you feel like you specifically are trying to preserve or protect through what you're doing?
SPEAKER_01I think what I'm trying to preserve or protect is just the organic and wholesomeness of the baked good, the grains, the treat, the dessert. I want to bring it back to the old world when things were simpler, when things were just the ingredients that you used were the ingredients in their prime, and I wasn't, I'm not trying to mask anything, I'm not trying to reinvent anything. So I really want you to taste something and taste the wholesomeness. I want you to taste the grain, I want you to taste the great quality chocolate. So it's like I don't want to make something taste like some gimmick. I want it to taste true, authentic. I want to bring it back to where it came from. If I'm using Sicilian almonds, I want you to taste like you're in an almond grove or orchard. I'm not sure which one they're called because everything has a different name. I want to transport you back to like we were talking, your childhood to this nostalgia. So it's like taking you on this journey through your mind, through your senses when you bite into something and tasting the simplicity, yet tasting the layers of flavor and the love. So it's just it's it's about keeping it real, wholesome, organic, and and appreciating all of this.
SPEAKER_00That's it's what you're doing is so beautiful and so inspirational. It inspires me. I have been following you for such a long time, and I have been completely in awe of what you've created and what you've done. It is remarkable. There is no one like you out in the baking world, and it's just it's what an accomplishment. What an accomplishment. How can our listeners near and far continue to support you? Reach out.
SPEAKER_01I'm I'm never like I will never, there's nothing for me to hide. Now, I'm not someone who's just gonna be like, okay, here's my recipe because it's just years of development and stuff, but I will always guide people and also I wanna ask questions because I don't know what you're doing in your bakery. So reach out on Wild Woman Bakery on Instagram and ask questions and let me help you get to where you want to be, what it is that you want to create, whether it's a sourdough brownie or a sourdough cookie or a muffin, which is a whole nother ballpark because they take other other people use a lot of revening agents and stuff. So but just you know, don't hesitate to reach out.
SPEAKER_00Do you book consultations so people can pay you for your time?
SPEAKER_01I absolutely do. When I have time, which as a mom, it's sometimes hard to find the time, but during my down season, when it's between the months of December and May, I well, December and March, I'm able to book consultations. But depending on sometimes they take an hour, hour and a half, really, to see what it is that what we're going to dive into. And I usually say we're gonna start with one recipe, and I also can do like FaceTime video, stuff like that. So that's for peak people who are visual, you know.
SPEAKER_00So if people want to support you and learn from you from afar, they can reach out on Instagram at Wild Woman Bakery, yeah, and they can let you know what their goals are, and then they can book and pay you for your time through a consultation. Absolutely, yeah. And if they live close to you, yeah, how can they where can they find you and buy your cookies?
SPEAKER_01So you can find me every week between, let's see, the month we start March 21st to December 21st, pretty much every week minus the week of 4th of July. I am at the Fayetteville Farmers Market from 7 to 2 p.m. Get there early because uh you sell out books. The cookie zombies now. That's right. They come early. Um, so usually by, you know, I try to make enough, you know, depending on the market. Our we're in a college town, so the market varies. In the very beginning, I can make uh between 225 to 275 baked goods, and they will be um sold, we will be sold out by 9:30, 10 in the morning. So my gosh. So yeah, it just depends. That's great, you know. Whereas in July, uh it's different because you also have people traveling and then the students haven't come back, so it depends in July. Also, people aren't craving in a hundred-degree weather a cookie. So I try to bring on tea cakes and I do better with the brownies because then people can think about them in the evening time. So I I kind of fluctuate and cornbread, cornbread sells great on the weekends as well. 100% fresh milled sourdough cornbread, which Janie's Mill has an amazing corn that they grow, an organic, sweet corn that I use that is just phenomenal. It just, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I hope our listeners are hearing how many creative ways they can incorporate more local grains and different varieties into everything that they're making. Yeah, it's possible. And you're showing us that it's possible. Absolutely. Thank you, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you, for chatting with me, for sharing your wisdom. Selfishly, I wanted to just ask you all of these questions because you're a goddess, but I know that everyone who's listening is going to walk away from this feeling so inspired and so excited to try new things. So thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for having me. You're such a gem in this community, and I appreciate we're both mothers, and you know, we balance it all. And people think that we do it seamlessly, but there's a lot, you know, behind the scenes. And five minutes before this, I was taking a shower.
SPEAKER_00I am in a closet right now, so holding the door closed to my children. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So okay, I'm gonna end it for us and then we can chat for a couple more minutes. Yeah. Okay. Bye.
SPEAKER_02Bye, thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you once again to Alex. That was such an incredible interview. I learned so many new things. I can't wait to make a different type of Levan for my cookies next time and try out a new flower blend. I feel very inspired, very excited. And I might even make my own vanilla with whiskey or bourbon. We'll see how it goes. If you would like to follow Alex on Instagram, you can find her at Wild Woman Bakery. And remember, if you're going to reach out to her, make sure you give her a little background on what you're trying to do, what you're trying to make, and set up a consultation with her because I know that you will learn so much and very quickly. She's just a fountain of knowledge. Again, thank you, Alex. You're great. I'm so thankful for our friendship. I'm so thankful for you, and all of the beauty that you bring to the Instagram world. Thank you for listening to the Saving Bread Podcast. I'm Allie White, the owner of Matriarch Bread in Morgan Hill, California. All of the music for the Saving Bread Podcast has been provided by Joshua from Dope. You can find him on Instagram at Get Dope. As always, happy baking and long live real bread.