Photographs by Kristine Michelsen
Flour, water, salt and sourdough starter. That’s it. Those four ingredients are what have allowed Chris and Sierra Adorno to not only stay at home and raise their children but also start their own business and bring real food to the community of Claiborne County.
“Knowing that we can be at home and raise our family but also make a living while sharing our bread with our neighbors really is the best of both worlds,” Sierra Adorno said.
Baking basics
Adorno made her sourdough starter in 2014 and has fed it daily ever since, but her love for the kitchen began many years before that just as a little girl.“There wasn’t a holiday or an evening that I wasn’t invited into the kitchen to make something,” Adorno said. “Whether it was cookies with my mom, a full-blown dinner with my dad or a special holiday meal with my grandma. So needless to say, I grew up in the kitchen.”
Adorno’s baking basics remained with her and continued to grow as she did. When she met her husband and they were ready to start a family in Placer County, California, they decided they needed to pay closer attention to what they were putting into their own bodies as well as what they would be feeding their now three children.
“I started teaching myself about the differences between yeast bread and sourdough fermentation,” Adorno said. “I played around in the kitchen with it, and it soon turned into making sourdough bread for my friends and family.”
Baking bread became a fun hobby that would soon turn into a fulfilling venture.
A den turned into a bakery
Years went by, and in 2022, the Adorno family moved 2,458 miles from the West Coast to the couple of acres they now call home, served by Powell Valley Electric Cooperative in Claiborne County. The family of five has chickens and a garden, but they had trouble finding the real bread in stores that they were used to enjoying. That’s when Adorno Sourdough was born.
“We soon realized that there was a demand for real food, and that coincided with my love for food and my love for feeding people,” Adorno said. “It has been this great journey of sharing what we love with our community, and it has been expanding ever since.”
The Adorno couple joined several farmers markets and soon found what they call “their people.” Those connections meant quickly expanding from baking about 12 loaves of bread for each market to 60 — all out of their residential oven that was having to run 24 hours every day.
“It was at that point where we decided to go all in, and we turned our den in our house into our bakery,” Adorno said.
Four wholesome ingredients
The loaves of bread the Adornos are baking really are made from four fresh simple ingredients: flour, water, salt and sourdough starter. That’s a much shorter ingredient list compared to loaves you will find on most grocery store shelves. While this sourdough bread’s shelf life is a fraction of what you would find in the typical retail store, Adorno assures it is both good for your body and your mind.
“I’m a firm believer that our food is supposed to be a tool to nourish our body,” Adorno said.
Adorno Sourdough recommends consuming their bread and products three to six days from purchasing. While sourdough bread doesn’t mold very quickly, it does lose a lot of its moisture over time. Aside from timespan, sourdough bread is also a better option for those who experience gluten sensitivity, and it allows for enhanced nutrient absorption, blood sugar control and gut health support.
A growing family affair
While the mission statement of bringing real fresh bread to the community hasn’t changed, Adorno Sourdough has definitely grown. The Adornos are easily making 125 to 175 loaves of sourdough bread in various flavors and 400 sourdough bagels a week on top of sourdough cinnamon rolls, sourdough croutons, sourdough pizza crusts, sourdough granola and sourdough brioche buns. That’s all done in their 15-by-15-foot den-turned-bakery with two commercial ovens, a commercial slicer and a commercial mixer. The products are found at local restaurants and stores across the region.
“It’s pretty awesome to look back and think that our capacity has expanded so much,” Adorno said. “We have been blessed to be able to turn this into a real bakery.”
Thankfully, the whole family is involved in this real bakery. The business now allows for both Sierra and Chris to stay at home, be with their children, and make and deliver bread together. Sierra’s mother helps with the farmers markets. Her father and brother help with their latest addition — Adorno’s Breakfast & Burgers food truck. There you can get sourdough bagels for breakfast and burgers sourced from a local farm served on sourdough brioche buns for lunch.
“We had no idea we would ever end up doing this, but looking back, it makes sense with our upbringing,” Adorno said. “It’s a real family business, and we’re all about sharing good, real food with people.”
Enjoying the present
Over a span of just three years, Adorno and her family have been able to share what real bread tastes like and the health benefits of it with well over 5,000 people. She has even started hosting classes in their community to help empower others to be able to do this very concept themselves.
As for what’s next for the bakery, sights are set on continuing to share and break real bread with their community. One day the goal is to open a commercial location and storefront as they are producing as much as they can in their den-turned-bakery. For now, though, they are content with what they have.
“We are really enjoying where we are at right now with being able to be present with our family while finding that happy medium of serving our community the way that works best for us,” Adorno said.
