Up before the oven since 2021

Teaching you to Bake with your Intuition

Welcome to my sourdough test kitchen. I break down the what and why behind every loaf, so the science becomes intuition, and the bread you bake is the bread you want to eat. I want you to relax and enjoy baking. Thousands of early risers bake along with me every week.

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Laila smiling in a rust-colored Central Milling apron, holding a wooden board loaded with five decorated sourdough loaves

What are you baking today?

Pecan sticky buns with caramelized pecan topping

Fresh from the ovenPecan Sticky Buns12 hr · 6 rolls

Hi, I'm Laila

I bake before sunrise so your loaf rises right, every time.

Every recipe here has been through my own kitchen more times than I can count — proofed on real schedules, in a real (slightly drafty) home, with notes on what actually matters and what doesn't. Think of it as a tiny test kitchen for sourdough: recipes, answers, and the confidence to trust your dough. If it's on this site, it works.

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A wooden table crowded with fresh sourdough — scored country loaves, dusted rye pan loaves, oat-topped batards, and slabs of focaccia

Laila in her yellow baker's apron embroidered with her name, smiling in front of rounds of proofing dough

Recent recipes

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A hand holding a baked french onion sourdough loaf with a deeply caramelized, cheese-crusted score over a butcher block

Loaves

French Onion Sourdough Bread

Two things I love, french onion soup and sourdough bread, combined into one of the best smelling (and tasting) breads I have ever made. Caramelized onions, funky aged Gruyère, and fresh thyme.

24 hr1 loaf

Rolls and buns

Onion Burger Buns

Sweet boiled onions folded straight into a slow-fermented enriched dough. Soft, pillowy, deeply savory — the bun that makes the burger.

35 hr6 buns

Pizza and flatbreads

Same Day Sourdough Pizza

A naturally leavened pizza dough you can mix at 11am and bake for dinner. Higher inoculation and warm water cut the fermentation way down without sacrificing the crisp, chewy crust, and the looser timing tolerates kid-pickup chaos.

7 hr1 large pizza (16-18 in)

Sweet bakes

Chocolate Babka Loaf

The Triple Vanilla Buns dough reimagined as a loaf, filled with silky dark chocolate ganache, twisted, and cold-proofed overnight. A little more dramatic to look at, just as easy to make, and especially good warm out of the oven with a cup of coffee.

36 hr1 loaf

Sweet bakes

Triple Vanilla Buns

An enriched sourdough bun built around three forms of vanilla, with optional 40% whole-grain Sonora flour for nuttiness and structure. Cold-fermented overnight, baked off in jumbo muffin tins, and glazed with vanilla syrup the moment they come out of the oven.

18 hr6 jumbo buns

Rolls and buns

Fluffy Garlic Rolls

Savory cinnamon rolls laced with herbs and butter. These fluffy enriched-dough rolls come together in a single day with three flexible timing options, then get brushed with melted parsley butter right out of the oven. Perfect warm dinner-table side.

10 hr12 rolls