Applied Artisan Bread: Production Scaling, Specialty Loaves, and Bakery Business Fundamentals

The craft of artisan bread-making reaches its full expression not in a single perfect loaf but in the ability to produce a consistent, varied menu at a quality level the market will pay for, week after week. That requires mastery of a broader repertoire — laminated viennoiserie, whole-grain and ancient-grain formulas, seeded and inclusions-laden loaves — combined with the production thinking that allows a small team to execute a bakery menu without chaos. By the end of this course you will be able to adapt a sourdough formula to include inclusions, whole-grain substitutions, and ancient grains, describe the lamination process for croissant and pain au chocolat dough, scale a bread formula for batch production and plan a realistic production schedule, and outline the financial and operational fundamentals of a micro-bakery business. What you will learn: - Whole grain and ancient grain formulation: spelt, emmer, einkorn, and rye — their protein, absorption, and flavor impact - Inclusions and mix-ins: timing, hydration adjustments, and shaping challenges for seeded and filled loaves - Enriched dough fundamentals: the role of fat, eggs, and sugar in brioche and milk bread structure - Laminated dough overview: butter block preparation, folding sequence, and the role of rest time - Production scheduling: backward-planning a bake list from delivery time, managing fermentation across multiple doughs - Scaling formulas: baker's percentage scaling for batch sizes from one loaf to fifty - Pricing a loaf: ingredient cost, labor, overhead, and market positioning - Operating a micro-bakery: cottage food law considerations, packaging, and customer channels This course is built around production case studies: a two-person Saturday farmers-market bakery planning a six-item menu, a home baker scaling up to a licensed cottage operation, and a professional bakery adding a whole-grain specialty line. Each case includes production planning worksheets, formula scaling templates, and cost calculation guides. Reflection prompts ask you to apply production principles to your own bread-making context. This course is designed for advanced home bakers, culinary students, and working bakers who have completed foundational and hands-on bread training and want to expand their repertoire and business understanding. Prior experience with sourdough baking is assumed.