Chicago bakers step up their sourdough game by branching out beyond the boule

Of all the breads out there, none offers as much emotional attachment — some might even say obsession — as sourdough to those who make it.

Bread has long represented more than the sum of its humble parts — from breaking bread as code for connecting with others to bread lines symbolic of hard times. But during the pandemic, homemade sourdough became a way for people to take matters into one’s flour-dusted hands. Once the world returned to some sense of normalcy and businesses reopened, the task of making sourdough at home and the challenges of its slow natural fermentation process were mostly relegated back to the professionals.

While some people may have abandoned their sourdough projects, others have not only continued to feed their starters but branched out with interesting flavors (even Taylor Swift has embraced her sourdough era with her blueberry lemon and funfetti breads), using sourdough as a vehicle for experimentation and self-expression. Some of these bakers share their creations through Instagram and pop-ups, and one baker who leaned into sourdough during the pandemic has parlayed a successful Instagram business into a brick-and-mortar bakery opening soon.

The passage of 2022’s Home-to-Market Act allowed home bakers to register as a cottage food operation, taking their creations out of their home kitchens to customers. One of those bakers was Mirela Hukic.

For her, baking has always been a form of therapy. It began when her family came to the United States as refugees in the ’90s during the Balkans War. Hukic would often bake bread alongside her mother and even briefly had a small bread-baking business as a tween. That was a distant memory when she became a mother and began a career in finance.

Everything changed when Hukic got laid off a year and a half ago. That same day, she told her husband she was going to make some sourdough, her family’s favorite bread. “He laughed, and said, ‘You just got laid off from a high-stress job, and you want to make the most complicated bread of all,’” she said. “Once again, baking was so therapeutic for me, and so that's what I did.”

Word of mouth among the friends Hukic gifted her bread to led to the creation of Bread Cult, an organic sourdough business with pickups available around Chicago at small businesses around the Chicago area; one of the places where her preordered bread can be picked up is at Madame ZuZu’s Emporium in suburban Highland Park, the tea shop founded by Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan and his wife, Chloe Mendel.

Bread Cult is based out of Hukic’s Portage Park home, where she produces some 180 sourdough loaves a week. Varieties include cinnamon raisin, rosemary polenta and dark chocolate pumpkin, along with seasonal items like blueberry lemon (Hukic’s favorite). The takesumi loaf incorporates activated charcoal and hence its all-black hue. One of her twin 10-year-old sons came up with the idea for the popular PB&J loaf, while both hand-decorate all the bags. "Their artwork is a huge part of Bread Cult as most of my customers are families,” says Hukic.

But Hukic’s original sourdough loaf made with organic flour, filtered water and ancient sea salt is still the top seller. For those who want to give sourdough bread making a try, Hukic sells a portion of her starter, aptly named The Cult Starter.

Smaller in scope but similar in inspiration is plant-based microbakery Someday Sourdough, the brainchild of Ania Bilinska. Born in Poland, she moved to Chicago when she was a kid. Growing up, she turned to baking “to calm and soothe my soul when things were a bit rocky,” she said.

In 2023, her remote work dwindled, and Bilinska once again returned to baking. Sourdough became a focus with the encouragement of a fellow bread-baking friend.

“Sourdough bread taught me that you could make a lot with very little, which has always been my approach to baking and cooking,” Bilinska said. “I didn't know I could make bread out of literally just flour and water and that it could be so delicious, beautiful and fulfilling on an emotional level for the person creating it.”

Since then, Bilinska, who is vegan, and her starter “Stella” have created a number of sourdough treats via Someday Sourdough, ranging from whole-grain gluten-free sourdough loaves and pumpkin-spiced sourdough brioche to sourdough bagels. Her baked goods are available at her pop-ups (check her Instagram for her schedule). Like Hukic, Bilinska bakes out of her home in Rogers Park.

Bilinska, who finds inspiration in nature, farmers markets and unique flavor combinations, initially struggled with figuring out a sourdough method but has found her own style through experimentation. “Once you start doing it yourself, you realize the best way to approach it is to infuse your own personality, schedule and preferences in it,” she said.

As someone who struggles with health and digestion issues, Bilinska began experimenting with creating a plant-based sourdough brioche dough. From there, she started playing around with different items she could make with the same dough, while simultaneously exploring other substitutions for ingredients that were traditionally used.

Her brioche dough doughnuts in flavors like espresso martini glazed and lemon Earl Grey have earned a loyal following. They’re made without any seed or refined oils and are sweetened with maple syrup. She fries them in avocado oil. Bilinska is currently trying to create a homemade vegan butter with the possibility of using it for laminated pastries next.

When Dan Koester was laid off from his head baker job at Soho House Chicago during the pandemic, he became one of the many who turned to sourdough for solace, albeit with skills that provided a head start. He began selling loaves on Instagram first as Dan the Baker and later as Bad Butter.

“With sourdough, even though it’s technical and precise, you have to adapt every day in order to get the loaf that you’re looking for and that’s both frustrating and rewarding,” said Koester. “Sourdough can take a while to get a handle on it, but it’s something that grabbed a hold of me in a way that nothing else really has.”

When Koester works with new bakers, he describes the sourdough process as a lot of repetition, understanding the peculiarities of your starter and the importance of checking the dough’s temperature, which can fluctuate throughout the process, especially vital for proofing times. “I’ve touched this dough 300 or so times so you just build that memory and muscle of what it should feel like.”

For the last three years, Koester has been selling his available-by-preorder baked goods — with many of them incorporating sourdough — at the Emily Hotel, where he makes them in a spare kitchen. His sourdough loaves have ranged from blue masa corn and oat to benne seed and beer. Equally creative is his sourdough focaccia with past favorites like black garlic and Parmesan, loaded baked potato, and potato and dill. Koester’s bagels and English muffins are made with sourdough too. All his croissants — including butter, ham and cheese, chocolate and a special Chicago hot dog — feature a small portion of his sourdough starter for added flavor.

This month, Koester is fulfilling his dream of opening his own bakery when Bad Butter opens at 1655 W. Cortland St. in Bucktown. Formerly Mable’s Table, his new bakery will offer coffee drinks and eventually sandwiches on his homemade bread.

For Divs Ray, who grew up in India and moved to Chicago in 2015 for school, baking was a way to create treats that she liked but wasn’t finding elsewhere, including ones without nuts or tree nuts or too much sugar. They also needed to be vegetarian.

During the pandemic, she began recording her home baking adventures first under her personal Instagram and later as Umami From Scratch, referencing the complex flavors in her baked goods, including spices like cardamom, clove and sumac.

“The focus is 100% on highlighting flavors and techniques from the old spice routes and translating that in a modern baking context,” she said. “All the ingredients and flavor profiles are going to be one of a kind.”

Since then, Ray has made many pop-up appearances, including her first at Side Practice Coffee where she introduced her black garlic miso butter sourdough focaccia. Madeleines have become a specialty in flavors like saffron orange blossom, jasmine dark chocolate and kimchi Parmesan. She recently made 1,000 of them for a wedding all out of her home kitchen.

Divs also makes a variety of bread, ranging from Hokkaido-style milk bread and challah to Bombay chile cheese lava buns. She uses sourdough for some of her breads, including focaccia and sfiha, a Middle Eastern flatbread that she tops with smoked tofu.

“If I have to pick one thing that I'm most passionate about it is bread,” she said, calling it her one true love. “Whenever I feel very emotional, overwhelmed or sad, to process my emotions I make bread.”