Sweet and sour

She long desired to stay home with her children. She just had to find a way.

It turns out that Fredonia resident Alyssa Brockman’s trio of youngsters provided just that, inspiring the start of a healthy home business based on her favorite hobby.

The entrepreneurial endeavor needed to ferment, much like Brockman’s baked goods, but pieces of the plan began to fall in place seven years ago when Augustus was born.

He has food allergies so serious that he carries an EpiPen.

Two years later came her daughter Eloise, who has sensitivities to gluten that cause irritable symptoms.

Her nearly 2-year-old son Ambrose doesn’t have any food issues, but by then she was already making all of her family’s meals from scratch to keep everyone safe and healthy.

The family tried bread without gluten, but that didn’t work.

“Gluten-free bread is quite terrible,” Brockman said.

Then came a breakthrough.

“Someone told me sourdough is lower in gluten than yeasted bread. It’s true. That culture you use to make the bread breaks down the gluten as it ferments,” Brockman said.

She took a sourdough baking class, and “right from there I started making a lot of it,” she said. And her daughter could eat the bread without feeling ill.

She didn’t stop there, adding cookies, scones and English muffins to her repertoire, all made with sourdough.

She still wanted to find a way to work from home. Brockman had been a sign language interpreter for the Howards Grove School District and was a substitute teacher at Ozaukee Elementary. After a stint filling in for an art teacher on maternity leave last year, Brockman wanted to find a way to be home with Ambrose.

She took a month off to “think about what I really wanted to do” and got overwhelmingly similar advice from friends.

“You gotta do the baking,” she was told.

“I was already making sourdough for my family and for our neighbors. People would buy it from me here and there.”

Brockman went for it.

That was February 2024. She launched Auloubro Sourdough Co.—named after her children—and began taking orders.

Oodles of orders.

“During the first week I announced to the neighborhood I would do this, within minutes I was getting orders in,” Brockman said.

She started making 20 loaves per week, working four days per week—two days to make the dough, allowing it to ferment, then two days to bake.

Brockman soon got more equipment and more efficient. Now, she’s down to one dough and bake day each, serving as many as 50 customers who keep coming back.

Brockman isn’t formally trained but had always had a love for baking. She, her mother and mother-in-law have done a three-day Christmas cookie baking extravaganza for nearly 15 years and give away all the cookies.

After graduating early from West Bend East High School in 2011, Brockman lived with a family in Germany that was into baking and developed deeper skills.

“I kind of learned the reasons why you add baking soda instead of baking powder. I learned the chemistry,” she said.

Given her family’s dietary needs, Brockman maintains a unique element in everything she bakes and makes.

“It’s nut free, including coconut, because those are some of my son’s allergies,” she said.

Brockman also uses natural ingredients like fruit juices to color sprinkles. Her kitchen is synthetic and dye free.

Her product line has expanded to English muffins, scones, cookies and different flavors of breads. Customers often ask when certain types will be made again — jalapeno cheddar bread and dark chocolate chunk cookies are favorites. Brockman has lately added pizza crusts, which have quickly become popular.

Sourdough for cookies and breads ferments for the same amount of time — 50 to 70 hours—and Brockman said the cookies have a raw cookie dough flavor rather than a sour note.

Her measurements are precise, a requirement for baking compared to cooking. Brockman uses weight instead of volume.

“You can pack flour into a cup or loose pour in flour,” she said. “When you weigh it, 100 grams is consistent.”

She also weighs each loaf after it’s done rising so everyone always gets the same size.

Brockman teaches classes on sourdough making and encourages others to cook for their families. She will travel to others’ homes or teach at a business.

“It’s an art. It’s a whole process and understanding of how to care for your starter. You do have to take care of it. It’s live culture,” she said.

Seeing families spend the same quality of time she does with hers through baking is rewarding.

“I have a passion for other people to bake in their house,” Brockman said. “I love seeing other people baking with their children.”

Brockman’s children like to help in the kitchen, though she won’t let them around products for customers, and her husband Rob is a big supporter.

She loves to talk with her customers and see her brown bags with her business logo around town, but she doesn’t know all of her buyers. Customers pick up their bakery from a box at the front of her house. Sometimes, the family is busy inside and customers grab and go.

Brockman’s goodies also get snagged quickly when she brings treats to school for her children’s birthdays. She said she makes sure to “spoil the teachers” too.

Some students remember her from art class and tell her, “My mom bought your bread. I ate your bread.”

Now that she has surpassed a year in business, Brockman has taken a moment to reflect.

“I was just thinking about this. I did it. I made it past that one-year mark, and I’m still going strong and I’m not burnt out and I love it,” she said. “It feels good to know that it actually worked.”

She also loves that her business helps make people happy and healthy.

“I’m so happy to feed people good food, nutritious, good for your gut. It’s a passion to have when I happily see them feeding their families,” she said.

She hasn’t had to hire an employee yet, but that’s not out of the question.

“Maybe somebody to do the dishes,” she said.

Visit Auloubro Sourdough Co. on Facebook.