Michael Kalanty

Bread can seem complicated at first. But it only has 8 steps, or phases. With practice, you’ll recognize these 8 phases for baking any bread and understand how they relate to one another.

The How To Bake Bread series is an award-winning master class on bread baking that goes into detail on step of bread baking. The first book, “The Five Families of Bread®”, features 50 of today’s most popular breads that are based on dried yeast like active or instant. The second, “Modern Breads/Wild Yeast”, is a deep dive on sourdough breads and making your own sourdough starter from scratch. Learn More

Sourdough is a type of bread made using a naturally fermented starter instead of dried yeast. The starter is a mixture of flour and water that captures wild yeast and bacteria from the environment. The wild yeast causes the bread dough to rise, the bacteria brings the tangy flavor to the bread.

Creating a sourdough starter takes about 7 days, but the amount of hands-on work each day is minimal. If you know someone who has their own starter, you can get some from them.

A starter can live indefinitely with regular feeding. Lucky Lady #99, my organic sourdough starter, is more than 30 years old. She’s in the world collection at the Sourdough Library in Belgium.

Many baked goods like pancakes, waffles, and even pizza can be  made directly from starter. The classic French sourdough, called Pain au Levain (“bread from a natural leavener”), uses a separate mixture of starter and flour first. This levain increases the yeast activity, boosts the flavor, and makes dough rise better.

How To Bake MORE Bread: Modern Breads/Wild Yeast shows step-by-step directions to make Pain au Levain and many other sourdough breads.  The book also shows how to create your own sourdough starter from scratch and includes a simple guide on feeding your starter.

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Michael Kalanty is professional bread baking, author, and bakery product developer. He’s written baking curriculums for culinary schools across the United States. His two books, How To Bake Bread: The Five Families of Bread® and How To Bake MORE Bread: Modern Breads/Wild Yeast, are used in culinary schools around the world, been translated into other languages, and have won awards like “Best Bread Book in the World”® at the Paris Cookbook Awards.

He specializes in artisan breads, sourdough, pizzas & focaccia, and desserts & pastries. He was the Executive Pastry Chef and Director of Boulangerie for the Le Cordon Bleu school system in North America. His breads won TWO first place prizes at the Tiptree World Bread Awards at the International Bakery Expo in Las Vegas recently. 

Originally from Philadelphia, PA, he graduated from Bucknell University with a degree in mathematics, followed with a masters in art & architecture history from Temple University. While studying medieval cathedrals in France, he became friends with a master baker who needed a motivated apprentice. Michael completed his thesis, stayed in France, and begin his baking apprenticeship. On his return to the US, San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy brought Michael to the west coast to write and teach their first baking & pastry program.

Michael’s professional certifications include Executive Pastry Chef, Culinary Educator, and Master Taster. Currently, he spends his time training industry professionals, developing bakery products for national manufacturers, and teaching hands-on classes to enthusiastic home bakers.

He lives in San Francisco, CA, USA. Contact

Michael Kalanty provides a complete range of R&D services for bakeries, restaurants, and CPG manufacturers. He specializes in product development for breads, pizzas, cookies, pastries, and snacks.

He tailors formulations, bench-up and commercialization for existing machinery, minimizing costly investment in equipment. He works directly with your quality control team to build assessment criteria that highlight your product’s shelflife and sensory characteristics like flavor and texture.

Kalanty draws from his French training in classic pâtisserie and boulangerie. He’s equally fluent in KETO and Gluten-free product requirements. His clients span a range of industries such as bakeries, restaurants, and multi-plant CPG manufacturers. You can contact him with your questions here.