Sourdough Bread

Grades 9 to 12

For high school culinary classes who have experience with baking and meet daily.
Students begin their own sourdough starter and use it to make sourdough bread.
Classes receive baking supplies, lesson plans, and other resources to bake and share.

How it works

This program is designed for high school classes with a foundational knowledge of baking principles and practices, such as reading recipes, using scales for measurement, and kneading bread dough. If your class hasn't baked bread before, we suggest starting with our Small Group/FCS option, which is ideal for introducing yeast bread.

In this 3-week lesson, students will explore the science behind cultivating and maintaining a sourdough starter, followed by using the starter to bake delicious sourdough bread. Each team will produce two loaves: one for tasting at school and another for donation or sharing as an act of kindness.

Due to the daily attention required for sourdough starter development, this program is for classes that meet daily.

Weeks 1 and 2

Students work in teams of 2 or 3 to cultivate and maintain their own sourdough starters.
Teachers supervise the starters, check for mold, and refrigerate them as needed overnight.

Week 3

Teams build up their starter and bake the Rustic Sourdough Bread recipe, yielding two loaves: one to taste in class and one for sharing/donation.

Resource Materials

Teacher Lesson Plan
Annotated Teacher Timeline
Student Feeding and Observation Schedule
Sourdough FAQ
Rustic Sourdough Bread recipe

We provide flour and yeast based on the number of teams baking, and each student receives a dough scraper

Please carefully review the Teacher Lesson Plan and Timeline for detailed information before you apply.

Learn, Bake — and Share

At King Arthur Baking Company, building community through baking lies at the heart of our mission. The BFG bread recipe makes two loaves or several dozen rolls, your students will extend the joy of their baking experience by sharing half of their baked goods as a donation to a food shelf, or as an act of kindness.