Fresh out of the oven sourdough bread, delivered right to your doorstep? Sounds too good to be true in this day and age, right? But definitely not too good to be true in Hidden Lake! Neighbor Amanda Hoffman says “homemade sourdough? Coming right up!”  For the last several months, Amanda has been baking sourdough bread and delivering it to neighbors doorsteps by way of word of mouth requests.

After baking bread for her own family for quite some time, Amanda had it on her heart to share sourdough bread with her friends, neighbors and community in Hidden Lake. Earlier this year on Easter weekend, Amanda decided to give it a whirl, brand her bread and Mandy’s sourdough was born. Amanda shared her sourdough by baking several loaves of bread to share with our neighbors. She made a post in the Hidden Lake Facebook group and invited neighbors to drop by and grab a loaf of sourdough to enjoy and try out with their Easter meals. All of the loaves were claimed and the bread was enjoyed. In fact, word started getting around about Mandy’s Sourdough and each week since Easter, she’s been baking bread for neighbors right here in Hidden Lake. What started as 8 loaves baked turned into around 20 each week and she even baked 40 loaves on her 40th birthday this summer!

When asked “why sourdough?” Amanda says “I love seeing sourdough on more tables because it takes us back to a simpler time. A slower time when more people grew their own food and cooked from scratch. It isn’t common that a plain store bought loaf of Wonder bread gathers families around the table but a loaf of sourdough, now that is a loaf of bread that people will come to the table for to enjoy and make memories together.” 

Amanda shared that acquiring the skill or bread making, baking sourdough and sharing it with her community has been a blessing to her in many ways and to pay it forward she wanted to give a weekly bread blessing of some kind. To bring that to life, each week Amanda draws a random name from all of the families who order bread and the name drawn receives a “blessing loaf”. Perhaps the blessing loaf is an extra loaf that that family slices and freezes for later or perhaps they “bless” a family member, friend or neighbor and gift them the loaf. “It just brings me joy thinking of how the blessing loaf is used each week in our community knowing it will be a blessing… no matter where it goes,” said Amanda

Amanda and her husband Ryan have lived in Hidden Lake for 5 years and have 4 children ages ranging from 12 to 4 years old. Amanda loves practicing homesteading skills on her less than an acre property here in Hidden Lake and inspires women to bring back forgotten skills into the heart of their homes by cultivating a life that is homemade, heartfelt and simple through embracing daily habits like cooking from scratch, growing your own food, sourcing what you can’t grow yourself locally and wearing an apron more.

There is truly something special, and almost uncommon these days, about having a loaf of freshly baked bread delivered to your doorstep and Amanda shared that she is honored to bake sourdough each week and serve the friends and neighbors in her community in this way. To enjoy Mandy’s Sourdough, catch her next bake by scanning the QR code featured in this article where you’ll receive an email alert when she bakes again!