Rising Star

The bread’s in here,” says sourdough baker Lauren Barry, owner of The Elder Bread in South Bend, Indiana. “It’s cooking for 25 minutes with the lids on—cast iron lids.”

She’s just opened the oven and pulled out one loaf, removing the lid. “I take them off and then they go for another five minutes. They get the color when the lids are off. Then they look like that.”

Lauren, 31, points to a shelf of gorgeous, golden-brown sourdough boules. Today she’s rocking overalls and a tousled pixie cut (lavender and platinum blonde); her forearms are adorned with tattoos. It’s noon on a Thursday, and the einkorn loaves are already sold out.

Each day, Lauren makes 48 loaves of sourdough and typically nine different sourdough pastries using stoneground organic grains—rye, einkorn, buckwheat, spelt and black emmer—grown and processed at Janie’s Mill in Ashkum, Illinois. She also features seasonal ingredients from local producers Richert/Phillips Farms Markets, Hebron Farms and Verdant Hollow, as well as herbs that she and friend Hans Westerink, owner of Violet Sky bean-to-bar chocolate, grow themselves.

“The crops that they grow, they make my stuff shine,” Lauren says. “They make me look good. I just make stuff with it. All the flavor is already there.”

Lauren calls her work of making small-batch, artisan sourdough bread a “humble career,” “simple and nice.” And she loves it.

“It’s consistent. It allows me creative freedom; it allows me to do whatever I want; it allows me to change whatever I want. I love making things with my hands,” she says. “It’s a good job. I like working for myself. I like being a woman-owned business.”

Lauren says it took time to figure out how to work with each grain and how much water to add during the different seasons. “It takes more water in the winter when there’s less hydration in the air and it’s cold outside.”

She says she’s also taking time to find balance in her life and to focus on “the little joys.” “I’m trying to do this the healthy way,” Lauren says. “I don’t want to crash and burn.”

A big contrast to the days when she was working 60 to 70 hours in Chicago at Kitsune, a Midwestern restaurant influenced by homestyle Japanese cuisine, where she learned how to make sourdough bread.

“I wasn’t seeing my kid grow up,” says Lauren. “I needed to move back home. [Lauren grew up in New Carlisle, Indiana]. I needed to take a break, focus on my kid, focus on some balance. I was unhealthy; I had to figure some stuff out. I came out. It was a big time. I got my life right.”

She began baking bread again (in her basement) after she moved back to the area. In 2018, The Elder Bread, named for her 15-year-old sourdough starter, was selling out at the Purple Porch Co-op’s Wednesday evening farmers market. Purple Porch still carries her sourdough bread, and The Elder Bread can be found at other South Bend businesses:

Lauren places dough into bamboo proofing bowls, also known as bannetons.

“I LIKE WORKING FOR MYSELF. I LIKE BEING A WOMAN-OWNED BUSINESS.”

Top: “I’m all about the flour,” says Lauren Barry. She started working with Janie’s Mill in Ashkum, Illinois, way back in 2018 when she was making sourdough bread in her basement. “Now he’s delivering more than $1,000 worth of flour, a whole pallet worth, stacked high.”

Bottom: These whole wheat sourdough loaves are cooled and ready to be delivered to wholesale customers or sold at Cloud Walking Collective in South Bend, Indiana. Lauren says that each grain requires a slightly different recipe. “It took me a while to figure out the bread, how to work the grains, each grain.”

Early Bird Eatery, Render, Roselily, Crooked Ewe, Fatbird and Oh Mamma’s on the Avenue.

Additional loaves and various pastries, including bagels, scones, tarts, muffins, doughnuts, madeleines and cinnamon rolls, are available Wednesdays through Sundays at Cloud Walking Collective, where Lauren shares a kitchen and café space with Violet Sky, Love & Macarons and Cloud Walking Coffee. The shared space opened its doors in July 2021, starting with just weekend hours, taking time for each business to get settled in and for building renovations.

“We had to build the temporary spot before we had the real spot, so that we could make money. We are real people and have bills,” emphasizes Lauren. “If I don’t come into work and make bread, I don’t pay my rent.”

She says that the group of artisan bakers and roasters “can’t exist without each other.”

“We have so many ideas,” Lauren says. “We’re going to have art shows, live music, different events, and we want to bring back the Flowers & Bones [an intimate multi-course pop-up dinner]. We want to be open late and have cocktails, and we’re going to have late-night snacks. And I want to do pizza by the slice; I want to make the sourdough pizza more of a thing.”

That’s all good news to anyone who attended one of those charming, limited-seating Flowers & Bones meals or pre-ordered Pizza Planet pies (sometimes featuring pickles as toppings!) every two weeks at LangLab—back when The Elder Bread was based there. During her time at LangLab, Lauren offered a tasty toast menu to accompany Zen Cafe’s pour-over coffee and lattes. Barry says not to worry—the toast will be back, too.

Though she’d originally intended to return to Chicago, Lauren confirms that she’s committed to South Bend for the time being.

“This feels like it can be successful,” she says. “I see the bigger picture. Our food scene is just kind of getting going. I’m trying to contribute. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Lauren shapes the sourdough into boules. Next it will go into proofing bowls and rest for 15 hours in the fridge before she bakes them early the next morning. She says that when she started out, she didn’t even use a mixer. “I was doing everything by hand— like every single part—it got to be almost impossible.”

The Elder Bread

125 E. Mishawaka Ave. South Bend, IN cloudwalkingcoffee.com

Katie Jamieson is an enthusiastic supporter and promoter of Michiana’s growing farm-to-table community and loves to shop, cook and eat local. She is associate editor for Curl magazine, owns Breath of Freedom Massage Therapy in Granger, Indiana, and writes and performs poetry wherever she travels. Katie is also the former publisher of Edible Michiana. Follow Katie on Instagram @followtheflavor.