It’s not an exaggeration to say that Redwood City’s Deb Lemos is obsessed with sourdough—but with 375,000 followers on Instagram and a successful Etsy shop, clearly she’s not the only one. Baking is part of Deb’s daily routine, which she deftly balances with a full-time job as the director of finance and operations for the math department at Stanford University, where she’s worked for almost 40 years.
“Sourdough is my passion,” Deb says. “I’m not someone who can be idle, and so I get up very early in the morning to get all of my sourdough baking and prep work done before the normal workday starts.”
Deb, who grew up in Los Altos, started baking with her grandmother when she was young, but it wasn’t until the last decade that she really got into sourdough. A friend gave her Jim Lahey’s My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method, which prompted her to start experimenting using his no-knead technique and conventional yeast. Then Deb decided to try making a sourdough starter. She was successful on her first try, and it’s the same starter she still uses today. “I loved it and became really obsessed; my family would say, ‘Oh gosh, she’s talking about sourdough again,’” Deb laughs.
When the pandemic hit in early 2020, Deb saw a huge rise in interest in sourdough baking and quickly launched her business. “All of a sudden, I became incredibly relevant,” she says. “Everybody was home, and everybody wanted to bake bread.”
Deb launched her Etsy shop selling dehydrated sourdough starter, complete breadmaking kits and a beginner’s guide. Her Instagram account is where she shares her love of sourdough baking by way of tempting recipes, practical advice and encouraging words. She also teaches classes a few times a month, has an Amazon storefront selling recommended tools and bakes for a few clients every month.
Deb likes to use the expression “easy peasy” to describe her approach to sourdough breadmaking, as her recipes require minimal equipment and hands-on time. Her two-loaf-pan technique eliminates the need for a Dutch oven, and most of her recipes don’t require kneading. “My goal is to teach people how to make the best loaf of bread for the least amount of work,” Deb says. “I want people to understand that it’s not as hard as it seems.”
Beyond perfectly baked loaves of bread (cranberry-walnut is one of her go-tos), Deb has created many recipes for other sourdough-based foods. Among her favorites: scones, focaccia and flour tortillas. She makes tortillas by taking the starter right out of the fridge, making the dough, dividing it into balls and freezing them, enabling fresh tortillas on demand. “They’re so easy and delicious that I tell people once they make them, they’ll never buy flour tortillas again,” she says.
Deb answers every question and Instagram direct message personally, ready to help fellow sourdough enthusiasts troubleshoot. “If you’re having trouble, it’s usually one of two things: Your starter isn’t healthy and active or you’ve over-proofed your dough,” she says, adding that over-proofing is one of the most common problems newer bakers tend to experience. “You have to get to know your starter and then be able to tell whether your dough is properly proofed or not, and that’s really different for every recipe and for every environment.” To help people with the process, Deb provides tips for proofing in warm and cold weather, as well as how to slow down proofing or speed it up.
Dispelling common misconceptions about sourdough baking is another priority for Deb—first and foremost, that it’s time-consuming. “It does take time, but most of it is passive time,” she clarifies. “If you feed your starter in the morning, it takes less than five minutes and it can go weeks in the refrigerator without needing to be fed again.” Developing a routine for making dough and proofing provides flexibility to bake when the timing is convenient, she adds.
Another common misconception Deb often sees is that people think their starter is “dead” when a layer of gray liquid, or “hooch,” forms on the top. “Nine out of 10 times when someone thinks their starter is dead, it really isn’t; all you need to do is feed it and see if you notice any activity and bubbling,” she says.
When Deb retires from Stanford, sometime in the next few years, she plans to see where her sourdough business goes organically. She’d also like to publish a cookbook. “I’m looking at this as my encore career, and I plan to do it as long as it’s still fun,” she says.
sourdough rising – @everything.sourdough
EVERYTHING SOURDOUGH TORTILLAS Deb Lemos’s recipe comes with a promise: Once you make these, you’ll never buy flour tortillas again. Any extra tortilla dough balls can be stored in the freezer. Bring them to room temperature and cook as directed. Ingredients 1¹/³ cups (210 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for sprinkling 1¼ teaspoons (7 grams) salt ¼ cup (56 grams) softened butter, coconut oil or olive oil 100 grams (slightly less than ½ cup) room-temperature water ½ cup (100 grams) sourdough starter, fed or unfed Whisk flour and salt together in a medium bowl. Cut butter or oil into the flour mixture using the back of a fork, a pastry knife or your fingers. Mix by hand until well incorporated or use a stand mixer with paddle attachment on low speed. Add water and sourdough starter and mix until you have a shaggy dough. On a floured surface, knead the dough by hand for 1 to 2 minutes until smooth and does not stick to your work surface. Use additional flour as needed. Cut the dough into 8 equal pieces and shape into balls. Cover dough balls with a light kitchen towel, inverted bowl or plastic wrap. Let them rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes or up to two hours, or refrigerate for up to 48 hours. Heat a 12-inch cast-iron pan on medium-high or use a non-stick skillet. Roll out each room-temperature ball to about 8-10 inches in diameter, flouring the board, rolling pin and tortillas as needed. They should be so thin they’re almost transparent. Lay a tortilla in the hot pan and cook until it puffs and browns in patches. Flip over and cook until lightly browned, about 1-2 minutes each side.