and stories beyound
On October 10, I had the pleasure of participating in The Icons Were Once Hungry, an immersive dining experience created by my friends at 2Idealists, which took place at the Andy Warhol Museum of Modern Art in Medzilaborce, Slovakia. Andy Warhol, one of the most …
My inner bread nerd had always dreamed of baking in a wood-fired brick oven, something you don’t commonly find in bakeries nowadays. So when I received an invitation from Jana Balážová and Andrea to co-host a sourdough baking workshop in Sicily, I enthusiastically agreed. The …
When I was visiting Portugal and Lisbon in 2024, I visited a very small bakery with a coffee shop where they also served breakfast. I had a lovely chat with the owner, who told me that they were baking sourdough and told me a bit about their products.
I don’t remember exactly how I found out that she was from Poland, but somehow I asked her if she might know the Transiting guys. They were my hosts in Copenhagen, where I also had a pop-up.
Evelyn, which was the name of the lady, told me that of course she knew Jan and Monika. So we had a lovely conversation. I had a cardamom bun and some sourdough bread, and when I was leaving Portugal, I thought that maybe one day I was going to have a pop-up in this cute little bakery.
Two years passed, my pop-up mission became clearer, and it got a name: Sourdough Without Borders.
Early this year, I contacted Monka Cafe, which is the name of the place on Instagram, with a question: could I bring Sourdough Without Borders to their place in Lisbon and organize a charity bake for Bake for Ukraine on August 24th, Ukrainian Independence Day?
To my happiness, I quickly received an approval from Evelyn’s partner Arthur, who was in charge of baking at Monka, and so we started planning the pop-up.
The program was pretty similar to what we did during my previous pop-ups. I baked the most famous Ukrainian bread, called Palyanytsya, and also sourdough rolls with cherry and poppy seed filling.
It’s always fascinating to see how recipes can be applied in different baking setups. For example, it was the first time I had a chance to bake Palyanytsya in Rofco ovens, because we mostly bake it in bigger deck ovens. But Rofco worked just fine, and it was a pleasure to be introduced to this beautiful oven that is so popular within the microbaking community.
The day of the pop-up was beautiful and also rainy. All the technical parts went smoothly enough, and so on August 24th at 9:30, we offered 100 pieces of sourdough bread and pastries to the customers of Monka Cafe.
It was a lovely day with lots of nice chats with guests from Portugal, the United States, Canada, France and, of course, Ukraine. I also met some guests of Bloom Bakery who are now living in Portugal, so we had a lovely chat and exchanged some news.
We managed to sell all our products and raised €460 for Bake for Ukraine, which means that our team of baking heroes in the Mykolaiv region will be able to bake 460 loaves of free bread for people in need.
I’m so grateful to Evelyn and Arthur, and to all the guests who supported this fundraising. And many thanks to my friend and collaborator Jana Balažova, who came with me and supported me during the day of preparation and on the day of the pop-up.
The next stop of Sourdough Without Borders is already planned, and it’s going to be something very exciting and absolutely extraordinary.
Stay tuned. I’ll post the poster later this month.
I gave myself a few weeks of inner reflections to think if I should attend Embodied Nature, a workshop with Frida Kim and Wagner Kreusch at Domaine de Boisbuchet, and to set my goals. However, last week I found myself in the middle of French …
One of my personal goals this year is not only to push my own understanding of what bread baking can be beyond just water, flour and salt, but also to introduce a different aesthetic of bread to the people around me. This goal led me …
It’s only July, and this year has already taken Luigi and me to quite a few places. I’ve been baking abroad in London and Greece, and I’ve also had nine consulting sessions in six cities across Slovakia. Considering that Slovakia is a rather small country, that makes me particularly happy.
Being part of Slovakia’s sourdough movement at this stage of its development is something I could never have dreamed about. Traveling with my sourdough starter Luigi and sharing my knowledge, technologies, and recipes with different people in completely different environments is an adventure. Seeing the same results, no matter how different the conditions are, is a rewarding challenge, and it keeps my technologist’s mind sharp.
Over time, I realised that achieving consistent results in completely different bakeries has much less to do with recipes than I once thought. It’s about people, observation, flexibility, and respect. Here are a few principles that have helped me along the way.
Of course, I can tell you a lot about how different the water is in different regions of Slovakia and how it influences bread and pastries, but the most important variable in every bakery is the team of bakers. Every case is unique.
I always try to understand how to work with them better because they will be using my starter and my recipes long after I leave. To a certain degree, they will define the consistency of the results and, therefore, the overall impression of my consulting.
My approach is very simple, and so far it has worked in 100% of cases: I treat bakers with respect. No matter how big the gap in our knowledge is, there is always something I can learn from them too, and I’m never afraid to admit it. It always helps.
Some of my clients already had my starter. Some were introduced to it and everything that comes with maintaining it. Others were not interested in “wild” fermentation and preferred another option that I also provide: building a sourdough production around ready-made sourdough cultures.
It’s a very convenient solution for bakeries that want to save time on refreshing a starter while still achieving excellent consistency. Most importantly, it is still a full-scale fermentation with all of its benefits.
That’s why I usually plan my visits for two or three days, giving us enough time to run several test bakes.
Every bakery is different. The tasks, goals, skill levels of the bakers, and the equipment all vary. Even though my recipes have been tested tens of thousands of times, the results can still differ for all the reasons I mentioned above.
And that’s perfectly fine. Sometimes I simply need another bake or two to notice the details that were hidden during the first trial. I never stress about it because the final result is what really matters.
Will the team be able to refresh the starter and bake on their own? Will they achieve the same results we had during the test bakes?
Most of the time, everything goes smoothly. Still, I stay in touch with the head baker or production manager so I can provide support whenever it’s needed.
My photographer took this picture of me while I was kneading focaccia dough in Greece. Looking at it now, I realise I had exactly the same expression during every test bake in every bakery I visited this year.
I’m truly living my best sourdough life. What a privilege it is to meet so many wonderful people, share my knowledge and my starter, and help them build successful bakeries for their communities.
I’m incredibly grateful that this is what I get to do.
When last year the owner of the location where one of our bakery shops is located told me that he also owns White Donkey Boutique Hotel with an olive grove and produces his own olive oil, he offered a collaboration where I would come to …
Today’s story is about what’s known as the sacred trio of nutrition: prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics and their connection to sourdough bread. This topic makes me super excited as it once again shows how meaningful sourdough baking can be, and uncovers new horizons that were …
I have baked this bread many times at Bloom Bakery and also presented it during courses with Jana Balažová in Zvolen. It has always been well received.
Its visual character comes primarily from the scoring, inspired by the work of the British baker Wayne Caddy. I also baked this crown during a pop-up at the Parisian bakery Petite Île, where it was equally appreciated.
This is a bread that speaks both through structure and gesture.
No-knead bread with 1% starter is perfect for those who do not have time to work the dough intensively but still want to bake sourdough bread regularly. This bread requires only very brief mixing, just enough to combine all ingredients, followed by a long fermentation. …