Using sourdough for starters: Alyson King finds her ‘zen’ in shaping her dough

Before the first loaf goes into the oven, Alyson King is already hours into the baking process, feeding and shaping dough that has been building flavor for days.

In her kitchen, five sourdough starters sit in jars, each with its own history. The youngest, she said, is 100 years old.

All the sourdough starters are a mixture of flour and water that develop natural yeast used to make bread rise.

Two of her starters came from California and are about 100 years old. Another is from Alaska. It is more than 200 years old.

One starter linked to Egypt dates back about 4,000 years, and another has been passed down through a German family for about 400 years.

“They all have their own personalities and perform a little bit differently,” she said.

King said those differences can affect how quickly dough rises and how the finished bread develops.

King moved to Franklin County in 2022 from Mississippi, returning with her family to her husband’s hometown.

“When we moved here, I got into the homesteading stuff,” King said. “I started growing a garden. I got some chickens and some rabbits.”

This shift in lifestyle led her to begin preparing more food at home.

“I wanted to do more scratch cooking, so I took things we already ate and started working backwards,” King said.

She said a question from her daughter about bubbles in bread led her to learn more about fermentation.

She said she first made Amish friendship bread before transitioning to sourdough.

“I wanted to set the goal for myself to not buy any bread from the store for a full year,” King said.

She met that goal, although early attempts did not always turn out as expected.

“I made dinner rolls that were hard as a rock,” she said.

King maintains her starters daily and builds dough over several stages.

Making a loaf takes several days from start to finish, she said. She develops the dough over time and works it by hand.

“It’s like I have a giant tub of Play-Doh,” King said of the

King said her production has varied over time.

“I’ve had times where I made up to 30 loaves in one day,” she said.

She now typically prepares between 12 and 18 loaves, depending on the event she’s cooking for. She said baking days often begin early and can last for hours.

King said she enjoys the hands-on nature of sourdough baking.

She described the time she spends working with the dough as her “zen time.”

King produces sourdough loaves along with bagels, dinner rolls and desserts such as cakes, blondies and cookies.

“My best sellers have been the garlic herb for sure,” she said.

King said customer response has helped shape what she continues to make.

She sells her products at pop-up markets and takes preorders for pickup at those events.

King said encouragement from family and coworkers led her to begin selling her baking.

“I used to send sweets with my husband to work, and everybody at his work would talk about how I needed to start selling them,” she said.