Who We are and Our Mission

(Brooke, Anne, Keith and Jordyn Gowens) 

Each of us contributes in one way or another to Gutes Brot from Ideas, recipes, preparation, baking, packaging, organizing and delivering. 

I am Anne and I do 90% of the baking. I create my own recipes or some are recipes passed down in my family. 

 I often share and teach general sourdough classes and a general recipe for making a loaf of bread.

The recipes I use here for my business are specific to ME and our family. I always list our ingredients but our portions, flavor combinations,  percentage of flour combinations, etc are due to my personal preferences and experience - I don’t follow other bakers in our area or compete with their products or pricing - I don’t know what they do or what they charge. I think it is wonderful so many new bakers have popped up in our area - 🩷 especially mamas wanting to provide extra income to their family (it’s exactly why I started many years ago) 

My FOCUS is Always Gutes Brot and what it means to US. My pricing is based off my ingredients cost and my time involved. I think it’s important to KNOW your baker!! They should be transparent on ingredients and their technique - if it’s sourdough is it a TRUE Sourdough what is the fermentation time, etc. 

I tweak my recipes until I feel they are worthy to share with YOU.  🩷 I take pride in that.  My loaves and techniques are very specific to us - these are not recipes I’ve obtained from watching tic-tok or found on the internet. Not that there is anything wrong with that at all - but all our recipes were developed and tested and tweaked and developed some more—-I just want to specify that I don’t use quick rising techniques / I don’t use only all purpose flour (I use a blend of different ones in most of our loaves ) I don’t call my muffins “sourdough “when using a quick bake discard recipe. I’m very CLEAR about the fact that my products contain organic or grown organic inclusions and even my muffins and cinnamon rolls are LONG Fermented to insure flavor development and healthy digestible benefits! ALWAYS. Some of my recipes contain whole milk and others contain almond milk (it’s all about texture and flavor for me) I’m picky about the quality of my specific blueberries I use and the rosemary in my breads. Some loaves have fresh garlic others have roasted garlic —- I’ve never been a follower of the masses. I always beat to my own drum and I take a lot of pride in that. 

Please know I’m not talking down any other baker - at all - I don’t know any of them. I’m just saying if you are into Sourdough for digestion and health KNOW that not all home baked sourdough is equal. I’m sure there are a lot of other great bakers baking great bread in our area - I’m just saying - ask the questions if you are into Sourdough this for digestion and health.

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My husband (Keith) (grew up in Lawtey) comes up with a lot of product ideas (you can thank him for those “Sticky”’s, the Carmel Pecan Cinnamon Rolls and Roasted Garlic Cheddar)  he is also my delivery guy or he tells us how to run our deliveries efficiently.  He does my supply runs before BIG baking weekends with the help of our daughter Jordyn. He supports all my CRaZY ideas and is my biggest encourager. There would not be a Gutes Brot without him. 

Jordyn and Me Doing Deliveries

Jordyn our oldest daughter helps so much she is the one who gets the starter (Gutie) to perfection before our big bake weekends, she is also one of the faces you will see at delivery. She is also our Artist (she does art commissions, greeting cards etc) She is also the one behind  most of our completely Gluten Free products or Old Fashioned Cakes. 

Brooke and her Bees 

Brooke our youngest daughter is my muscle and voice of reason (she keeps me focused and running efficiently) She is my organizer, my stocker and she loads that car up on pop up days, organizes  everything down to the last details, and pretty much runs the show when we go to markets or Pop Ups. She also helps with our other products like picking tea flavors, sizing and pricing products. She is getting back into bee keeping this coming spring -  Which means my herb and tea gardens will do amazing with all those pollinators—-I’m so very excited about this!!! 

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 Our GOAL is always to be GUT Healthy and Affordable.  We want to serve our community and provide quality products. 

Jordyn and Brooke

I started GUTES BROT as a cottage business  in 2016. In 2016 there weren’t many cottage businesses around in my area of North Central Florida so I had to educate myself and even some officials regarding cottage food laws and businesses.

Long story short I discovered Sourdough during my fermentation journey for Good GUT HEALTH. I personally live with a few diagnosed chronic conditions.  Sourdough and fermentation of foods were life changing for me and my family.  I became obsessed with sourdough and the process - it was therapeutic  for me, healing and beautiful.

I am a fisherman’s daughter raised in Cedar Key, Florida. We ate pretty naturally - mostly the catch of the day - or daddy would come home and go out hunting. We raised chickens and hogs for food and my dad kept a garden when he could. My mom always cooked real foods, balanced hot meals, baked and taught my sisters and me at a young age. I’ve always loved cooking!! The smell of vanilla brings back memories of baking cookies with my grandmother. She also made me love watching that dough rise when all the grandchildren came together on pizza night. I was the oldest and it was my job to keep an eye on if the dough rising was done. (Surely, just a way to keep me busy) but it lit a flame in me. 

I’ve tried to give all that history, passion and knowledge to our daughters and hope they continue by sharing with their families one day. 

I have a deep connection with the starter I use he is almost 400 years old. Long story short - I obtained him through a sourdough collector - this is a person who has been around the world collecting starters and tracing its history. My starter was obtained from an area of Germany where my Great, Great, Grandparents once lived before they migrated to America. I named my strong, beautiful, healthy starter “Gutes Brot” AKA “Gutie”  (German Language for “Good Bread” (ps. I call all commercial bread “Evil Bread” 😁) I’ve maintained and baked with Gutie for 10 years now.

After much prompting from friends I began to sell my breads in 2016. Naturally, my business would be named after the star of the show and Gutes Brot was born.  

Since then I’ve built our business, created over 50 flavors and products, baked for countless hours and days. I was baking and selling sourdough in the Starke, Bradford County Florida area since 2016 - area long before the COVID rush of sourdough awareness and tiktok videos (which I think is AMAZING) I believe we are finally moving in a great direction- food awareness is essential for our health, family and our community.

I’ve taught classes for Gut Health, Fermenting Foods, Freely given Gutie to anyone who asks and I’ve taught Free sourdough baking classes because EVERYONE should freely have the ability to affordability feed and nourish their family.

I make my own fermented foods like sauerkraut , kava’s, kombucha, kefirs, ginger bugs, fermented fruits and veggies of all types - it’s a big part of my OWN Healing Process. It’s a lost and disregarded way that people have lived and eaten for hundreds of years. It’s how I started doing sourdough many years ago in search of healthier alternatives for our family. To fill our diets with nourishing healthy pro and prebiotic foods naturally . 

Sourdough bread with fermented dilly carrots and scrambled eggs with homegrown vegetables. 

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That is what sourdough has been since the beginning of time in our world. I often trade my breads with local organic growing farmers for honey, herbs or fruits for my breads, jams and teas etc.

I like to think nostalgically that My Starter is the same starter culture my ancestors used hundreds of years ago. Each family had a starter - you could share your starter with your neighbor, when your child moved away to start their family they took starter to their new home.

Sometimes people don’t have the time or the ability to bake these breads and that is why for centuries communities have had bakers. I love seeing photos of children holding their breads in front of store windows when they would run out for the morning breads for the family - photos of bakers delivering breads on bicycles in the early mornings or walking through the streets with a bread cart. All through time - everywhere you look there is BREAD! Big beautiful round crusty loaves !!! Not Wonder Wheat with a 1,001 ingredients you can’t pronounce going from flower to plastic bag on a hot truck within a few hours and sitting on a grocery store shelf for 2 months or more?

Does having an old starter mean it’s better - absolutely not - you can bake great bread with a 3 week homemade starter just as well. I just have a connection to mine - it gives me a sense of family connection and belonging.

“Gutie” is our family !!! It’s a living, breathing, growing and giving part of our family and we love sharing it with you.

Anne 🩷