The Story of
Kara’s Bread

I have always been an avid cook.

I remember studying recipe books as a child, admiring the beautiful pictures and reading the lists of ingredients like a novel. I grew up in a family of home cooks on either side. Comfort foods laden with tradition, and bursting with things grown in the garden in the summer, or preserved treasures in the winter months. As I got older I began to branch out, ever curious about cuisine from far off places, wondering what those ingredients would smell like, taste like, look like. I would explore international food stores where I couldn’t read the labels but I would buy them anyways. I would try a new recipe almost every day, with no reference for what it was going to taste like. It was a culinary adventure, followed by those hesitant and excited moments when you take the first bite. Thai, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Israeli, Peruvian, Cuban, you name it, I’ve tried making it!

As for bread, I felt it was too out of reach and complicated for something so simple, so I didn’t attempt it until much later. I had come to the realization that I couldn’t find real, authentic bread anywhere in stores, and if we wanted it we were going to have to make it ourselves. So, in 2016, I tried baking my first real, yeasted artisan-style loaf of bread. As we stood at the counter tearing hunks off in delight, swiping them liberally through our butter dish, I wondered why I had ever waited so long to try.

By fall of 2018 I was getting better and better at it. I had refined the recipe, written down my process, converted the ingredients into weighable grams for the most consistent results.

My friends and family were in love with this bread, and so was I.

My husband Evan kept tell me, “you’ve got to try selling this”. At the time, I told him… “Are you sure? No one is going to buy it.”
How wrong I was! I began selling in December of that year, and by January 2019 it was starting to gain traction. I remember being so excited when I hit 10 loaves per week. And then 20. And then 50, on and on, growing and growing. I added baguettes to my offering, and then I started making sourdough in late January. I had been asked multiple times to make it, and I knew I needed a sourdough starter. I am incredibly lucky (at the time I didn’t realize how much so) to have been gifted my starter from a friend. Originally hailing from a bakery in San Francisco, my starter is now approximately 45 years old. A robust, living, and wild thing it is, smelling of citrusy IPA’s and buttered popcorn. I named him Norman because, well, he is far older than me and needed something that sounded dignified. I was incredibly nervous to try it (ever an overthinker) but here we are and the sourdough has become the star of the show.

Next came the pasta.

I had been dabbling with adding sourdough starter to….well, everything, for a while now. Pasta was a natural choice. It added tang, and depth, and intrigue, let alone the tremendous benefits of fermentation! I would hand mix, hand knead, and use all of my strength to roll it into thin sheets of dough for ravioli, or soups, or bowls of pasta. I was asked time and again, “will you sell it? Can we have it?” but the process was laborious and time consuming.

As a result of my husband’s encouragement yet again (you all really need to thank him for Kara’s Bread, as it wouldn’t be what it is today without him!), we decided to take a leap of faith and purchase our La Monferrina pasta extruder. We were able to put our beautifully simple ingredients (semolina, water, sourdough starter) into our machine and extrude delicate shapes through a heavy bronze die, resulting in a tender and gorgeous fresh pasta that was unlike anything we had ever had. We were blazing a trail here, with no recipes or guides online that we could find. Could we possibly be the first? After much trial and error, we launched the sourdough pasta and our customers seemed to all agree, it is life changing.

What is next for Kara’s Bread?

Who knows! Time will tell. We strive to be creators and curators of all the things we enjoy. Who’s to say what we will create next?