If you’re looking for delicious, gluten-free, homemade bread and want to support a local business in our community, look no further than Leaven & Love Organic Bakehouse. Owners Ashley and Jeff are foodies who are passionate about organic, slow food that nourishes our bodies and the earth. Read on to learn more about this delightful couple and all the love they pour into their family business. And be sure to get your orders in for a gluten-free loaf of Classic Sourdough, Cinnamon Raisin, Olive my Rosemary, or Paleo-ish!
Q: Hi Ashley and Jeff! We’re excited to introduce you to our Inspired Health community! We always like to begin with a little background. Could you tell us a bit about yourselves and what inspires you?
L&L: Hi, Inspired Health Community! Thanks so much for having us here. We are Jeff & Ashley, owners of Leaven & Love Organic Bakehouse. We live in Sisters with our two young daughters.
We took over Leaven & Love two years ago. We specialize in gluten-free sourdough and have recently expanded into other gluten-free options. If you’d have told me ten years ago that we would own a bread business, I wouldn’t believe you! But we have followed the breadcrumbs here and feel deeply honored to get to serve the community in this way. Jeff & I have both experienced what it’s like to live in a body that’s not being properly nourished and then make the shift into prioritizing clean, nourishing, organic ingredients. It makes a world of difference when food that checks all of those boxes is easily available and delicious. That’s where we come in!
One of our biggest inspirations is living here in a place where local, organic food is so abundantly available! We are surrounded by devoted farmers, ranchers, restaurateurs, connoisseurs, and makers and the greater community that spends their dollars to support those devoted to good food. It really doesn’t get better than that.
Q. We’d love to learn about your journey to the helm of Leaven & Love, and specifically why you chose to focus on gluten-free sourdough bread?
L&L: We began our gourmet food journey crafting organic, gluten-free dark chocolate. It was through this endeavor that we met other foodies focused on bringing healthy alternatives to Central Oregon. One of our dear friends was crafting gluten-free sourdough, but was looking to spend time abroad. After talking with her for several months, and witnessing how much this bread meant to her customers, we agreed to buy her business and make bread on the side to support the existing customers. The following season we took the bread to our chocolate booth at the farmers markets, and thats when everything changed. We would have folks come by for a sample and begin crying because they had not tasted good bread in 10, 15, even 25 years! Once we realized how deeply this impacted peoples lives, we strove to find a gluten-free commercial kitchen to call our own and focus our attention on the bread.
It has always been the customers that keep us fired up and going. It is why we uphold such strict standards for quality ingredients, and why we are continuing to find ways to improve access to our bread and baked goods.
Q: What do you feel sets your bread apart from the rest of the gluten-free bread products on the market today?
L&L: Our ingredients! We are fully committed to using only the highest quality, clean, organic ingredients – milling most of our whole grains inhouse. That means it’s free from gums, seed oils, preservatives, anticaking agents, and cross contamination. We want our bread to taste delicious, have a fabulous texture, and leave you feeling nourished and satisfied. If you eat a bunch of bread and feel bloated afterwards, what’s the point?
Gluten-free sourdough bread is also very different than typical gluten-free bread. Sourdough is having quite the moment, and for good reason! The fermentation process basically pre-digests the ingredients for you, so that the bread is a lower glycemic index (it won’t spike your blood sugar) and the nutrients are more bioavailable (easier to assimilate). Gut health has such a huge impact on our well being, so we want to be sure the food we offer supports a healthy gut!
Q: Gluten-free baking can be tricky, especially bread, which is a whole other beast! We imagine that it took you some time to perfect your process. Can you share any tips or tricks that you’ve learned along the way? Or maybe a piece of advice for someone keen to bake their own first loaf?
L&L: We were so fortunate that our predecessors, Courtney and Sofia, created such an incredible recipe to work with. Since taking over, we have been refining the recipe and our process to continually make it even tastier.
Creating your own sourdough products can feel daunting at first, since it’s a several day process and includes working with a living creature – the starter! Sourdough is impacted by the temperature, weather, humidity, new bacteria being introduced from the air, and how it feels that day. Every day entails showing up, trying something, observing what happens, write everything you did down, and continuing to refine. It doesn’t take 10,000 hours like the common narrative, but it may take you several goes to perfect something. Don’t give up, you got this!
Q: What is YOUR favorite thing to top a yummy and nutritious slice of sourdough with? 😊
L&L: We are pretty huge grass fed butter fans. It’s the universal topping! When we’re not feeling dairy, we’ll put a generous amount of JEM Nut Butter & Broadus Bees honey. We’re so lucky to have these incredible food producers here in Central Oregon!
Q: Are there any music, books, podcasts or shows that have inspired you lately?
L&L: Ashley recently devoured the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. I used to think maintaining good habits was all about will power, but I learned it’s actually much more about setting up your environment up for success! Highly recommend for anyone looking to refine any area of their life.
Q: Which of our 8 Pillars of Inspired Health are you personally giving extra attention to these days?
L&L: Nutrition is, of course, such a vital part of our life and a big inspiration for what we do! Especially during the smoke season, eating a low-inflammation diet feels critical to maintain our well being so we can continue to show up for our community and our children. We also have to give a shout out to the Pillar of Sunshine & Nature! We make it a habit to get outside and move our body, dip in the river, and get sunshine on our body every day.
Q. We see you just started offering gluten-free bagels! Is there anything else on the horizon we can look forward to from Leaven & Love?
L&L: We are having so much fun playing around with new gluten-free recipes! We are working on pizza dough right now, which is a highly requested item! Jeff is also very excited about brioche buns. We love hearing what our customers hope to see in the future, too, so we welcome any and all suggestions!
Q: And as usual, let’s share some Central Oregon love! Can you share a couple of your favorite local businesses?
L&L: After living in Bend for over six years, we are absolutely LOVING getting to know our new Sisters community! The curation of art at Space in Common and Raven Makes Gallery always leaves us inspired and you can find us at Sisters Coffee Company pretty much every day. The Stand in Sisters is a bit of a hidden gem, where you can walk up and grab vibrant, organic produce grown by Mahonia Gardens & other local farms. We want to give a huge thanks to The Sisters Depot. They reached out to us because of a mutual customer, and it is their unused second kitchen that became our bakery! They have a ton of GF options on their menu and a fabulous outdoor patio for dining.
Q: Thank you so much Ashley and Jeff! Tell us all the places we can find you and your amazing sourdough!
L&L: During the market season, you’ll find us at the Bend Farmers Market on Wednesdays and NWX Farmers Market on Saturdays. You can order bread at leavenandlove.com (we ship nationwide!) and find inspiration at @leavenandlove on Instagram. We are adding new retail and wholesale locations often and have a full list on our website.
