The Art of Homemade Sourdough
From a jar of flour and water to your first real loaf.
A step by step video course. You build your starter, mix your dough, and bake a tall, open loaf in your own kitchen. Along the way you learn to read your dough, so it works every time, in any season.
Recorded video lessons. Start today, bake at your own pace. See all 3 ways to learn
Sound familiar?
You followed the recipe exactly. You still got a brick.
None of this means you are bad at baking. It means you were taught to watch the clock instead of the dough.
The one shift
Read your dough, not the clock.
Every recipe gives you times. But your flour, your water and your kitchen temperature are different from mine, so the times will never match.
This course teaches you what ready looks like. How a strong starter rises and holds its dome. How dough feels when it has fermented enough. When to shape, and when to wait one more hour.
Once you can see it, you stop guessing. That is the whole course.
Viktoriya Kreynes, training one on one in France
Your teacher
I baked bricks for months. Then I got on a plane.
Bricks
For months my loaves came out flat and dense. I loved baking them anyway, and I could not figure out what I was doing wrong.
The gatekeeper
The one baker I knew who could do it would not share how.
The leap
I was living in Europe. I emailed a French mill, they replied, and I got on a plane.
The mentor
I trained privately, one on one, at his working mill, with the chef who won first place in the French baking championship. He held nothing back. He never gave me a recipe. He made me look at the dough.
The loaf
My first tall, open, real loaf. I cried a little.
You don’t have to fly to France. I put everything into one course, step by step.
What’s inside
Six parts. One loaf at the end of it.
36 video lessons, in order. Watch each one, then do it in your own kitchen.
Start Here
Get set up before you touch any flour.
- Welcome, and How to Use This Course
- The One Shift: Read Your Dough, Not the Clock
- The Tools You Actually Need
- Flour, Water, Salt, and Why We Weigh in Grams
The Living Starter
Build your starter from flour and water. Learn why days 3 and 4 look dead and are not, and how to know when it is strong enough to bake with.
Your First Loaf: Starter to Baked Loaf
The full bake, start to finish. Mixing, folding, bulk fermentation, shaping, the overnight proof, scoring and baking, with what to look for at every stage.
Plus a bonus lesson on the Bulk Method, a simple way to know exactly when your bulk fermentation is done.
Your Baking Schedule
Fit sourdough around your real week, so the bread works for you and not the other way around.
The Diagnosis Vault
When a loaf goes wrong, find out why. Flat, dense, gummy, pale, sour: match what you see to the cause and the fix.
Beyond Your First Loaf
Once your loaf is reliable, where to take it next, with 7 recipes to bake: blueberry, olive, cheese and chocolate sourdough loaves, plus sourdough discard pizza, pancakes and banana bread.
By the end you have a living starter, a loaf you baked yourself, and the eye to do it again.
Get the courseThis is for you if
- You have never made sourdough and want to start the right way
- You have a starter but your loaves are inconsistent and you cannot tell why
- You want bread with ingredients you can pronounce
- You want one slow, good thing in your week
This is not for you if
- You want a recipe to follow without ever looking at the dough
- You want a loaf done in a few hours. Sourdough takes its time
- You are an experienced baker chasing competition crumb
From my kitchen
From your starter to a loaf like this.
From my bakers
In their own words.
I bought 3 different courses before Viktoriya’s, and her course is very detailed, visual, with videos step by step. My loaves have never been better.
SuzyI struggled with bulk fermentation for months. Viktoriya’s method works for me every single time, and now I know exactly when my dough has finished bulk fermentation.
KathThe bulk fermentation method is explained and shown in the video in a way that anyone can understand. Even my 10 year old daughter now knows when bulk fermentation is done.
MargaretChoose how you learn
Fix it on your own, learn it with me, or bake it with me.
The guides
The Sourdough Fix Method
$29
one time
- The Sourdough Fix Method, 59 pages with photos
- The Whole Wheat Sourdough Fix Method
- The Sourdough Recipe Collection ebook
- 5 printable charts and 5 sourdough templates
- Decoding the Sourdough Starter Process
- No video course
The course
The Art of Homemade Sourdough
$97
one time
- The full video course, all 6 parts, step by step from starter to baked loaf
- The Bulk Method bonus lesson
- The Diagnosis Vault, so you can fix any loaf that goes wrong
- Everything in the guides: both Fix Methods, the Recipe Collection, charts, templates and Decoding the Sourdough Starter Process
One on one
Bake it with Viktoriya
$397
one time
- 3 hours one on one with me on Zoom, booked at times that suit you
- The Art of Homemade Sourdough, the full video course
- Everything in the guides
- We look at your starter, your dough and your loaf together
Questions
Before you start
Do I need a starter already?
No. The Living Starter walks you through building one from just flour and water, day by day. If you already have one, you will learn how to tell when it is strong enough to bake with.
If you would rather not build your own, I can ship you some of my 36 year old French heirloom starter, dried and ready to wake up, with instructions to bring it back to life. The starter itself is free. You only pay $5.95 to cover shipping straight to your door. Once it arrives, it is ready to bake with in 3 to 5 days, depending on how warm your kitchen is. US shipping only. Ship my starter
I have never baked bread. Is this too advanced?
Not at all. This course was made for beginners, so if you have never baked bread, you are exactly who I had in mind. You do not need any baking experience. Every step is on video, filmed close up in my kitchen, so you can see exactly what your starter and your dough should look like instead of guessing from words on a page. We start at the very beginning: what to buy, why we weigh in grams, and how to build your starter from just flour and water. Then we go one small step at a time, in plain, simple words, until you are holding your first loaf.
What equipment do I need?
Less than you think. This is the minimum you need to bake your first loaf:
- A digital kitchen scale. The one tool you cannot skip, because we weigh everything in grams.
- A large mixing bowl.
- A bowl lined with a floured tea towel, to hold your dough overnight. No proofing basket needed to start.
- A clean razor blade to score the top of your loaf.
- Parchment paper.
- Your home oven. You do not need a Dutch oven for the course recipe.
You most likely have most of this in your kitchen already. Inside the course, The Tools You Actually Need lesson gives you the whole list with the details for each one. It is a short list, because you really do not need much to bake a good loaf.
Is the course live?
The course is not one long recording. It is 36 video lessons across 6 parts, taking you step by step from building your starter to cutting into your first loaf. They are recorded, so you can start today, bake on your own schedule, and watch any lesson again as many times as you need.
If you choose the top option, Bake it with Viktoriya, you also get 3 live hours with me, one on one on Zoom, on top of the full course.
How long do I have access?
Your access opens the moment you check out, and it is yours to keep.
How do the private sessions work?
These 3 hours are all yours. It is just you and me on Zoom, and the whole time is about your starter, your flour, your dough and your loaf. Book them the way that works for you: one hour at a time, 2 hours together, or all 3 in a row. We find times that fit your schedule and mine, and we shape the sessions around whatever you need.
Bring your starter in its jar. Bring your dough in the middle of bulk fermentation. Bring the loaf that did not turn out the way you hoped, and every question and worry you have. We solve it right there, together, and I walk you through the Bulk Method on your own dough. If you need all 3 hours in a row, we stay all 3 hours.
You leave knowing exactly what your starter and your dough are telling you, with a clear plan for your next, better loaf.
The Art of Homemade Sourdough
Your first real loaf is closer than you think.
Build the starter. Read the dough. Bake the loaf. I’ll show you every step.
Get startedResults disclaimer
Sourdough is a living process. Your results depend on many things outside my control, including your flour, water, starter, kitchen temperature, equipment, oven and how closely you follow the lessons. The methods I teach are the ones that work in my kitchen, shared for educational purposes. I cannot guarantee any specific result, and I am not responsible for the outcome of your bakes.
Baking involves hot ovens, heavy cast iron pots and sharp blades. Use oven gloves, follow safe food handling, and check every ingredient for allergies before you bake. You bake at your own risk. Nothing on this page or in the course is medical, nutritional or professional advice.