Author Overview
Title: Sourdough educator, recipe developer and firm believer that your sourdough starter is not the boss of you!
Expertise: Sourdough baking, step-by-step sourdough tutorials and recipes, fitting sourdough into busy schedules, helping helping busy home bakers make sourdough fit real life.
Favorite Sourdough Flavor: I can never get enough of this sourdough coffee & maple loaf and this sourdough Italian herb and cheese!
About Kate
I’m Kate Freebairn, founder of The Pantry Mama, where I help home bakers make sourdough fit into everyday life through flexible recipes and real-life baking strategies. As a sourdough educator and recipe developer, my mission is simple: help people bake incredible bread without needing a perfect schedule. Since 2019, I’ve been sharing approachable sourdough tutorials, recipes and timelines, helping home bakers around the world gain confidence in their kitchens. Along the way, I’ve built a vibrant sourdough community of hundreds of thousands of people across social media and email, who share the same love for baking incredible sourdough, no matter what life throws at them.
My Expertise
I’m a self-taught baker with over 10 years of experience nurturing my sourdough starter and exploring everything there is to know about this fascinating little colony in a jar. What started as curiosity has grown into a true passion for creating approachable, reliable sourdough recipes.
As a busy mom, I know how hectic life can be (which is why I love sharing my sourdough secrets for busy moms), but I also believe it’s still possible to nourish your family with wholesome, homemade sourdough bread. That’s why I write my recipes to be as clear and flexible as possible, offering simple instructions, stand mixer options, and practical ways to fit sourdough into even the busiest schedules.
Before I went all in on The Pantry Mama, I gained a BA from the University of Western Australia, majoring in Anthropology and Italian Language. I forged a career in human resources and people management, before having my family and starting The Pantry Mama.
My Sourdough Journey
My love of food began as a teenager living in Northern Italy, where I first learned not only how to cook—but how to truly enjoy food. It was there that I fell in love with focaccia and pasta, flavors that would later inspire me to create my own sourdough versions (check out my sourdough focaccia bread recipe and sourdough pasta recipe).
In my early twenties, I started baking bread at home, but my passion really took root after I met my husband and we moved to a remote mining community where fresh bread wasn’t easy to come by. What began as a necessity quickly became a calling, and from there I threw myself into learning the art of making bread, one loaf at a time.
My sourdough journey has seen me win first prize for my sourdough bread in our local agricultural show, share hundreds of jars of my sourdough starter with people interested in baking their own sourdough and writing a series of ebooks about making sourdough that have sold over 7000 copies.
Favorite Recipes
Sourdough really is my love language! If you ever visit me at home (be sure to dodge the Nerf bullets as you come in) and bring a bag, because you’re sure to be leaving with some delicious sourdough goodies! Here are some of my favorite sourdough recipes that I hope you’ll love too!
From the sourdough discard pizza dough that I bake for my family in our wood fired pizza oven every Saturday night, to the sourdough chocolate chip cookies I make at least once a week, you are sure to love these sourdough recipes, straight from my kitchen to yours.
Kate’s Favorite Recipes
Let’s Connect
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