Hello – I am Hailey!

Nice to meet you. I am the creator and author behind the blog- Rooted At Heart

I am a wife to my husband Spencer and a mom to our two daughters. We also have an Australian Bernedoodle, Stella.

Contrary to what one may think, I was gluten free for over 14 years before I made the switch to eating wheat and making sourdough recipes.

From Gluten Free to Eating Sourdough

When I was little, my body had constant inflammation and I reacted poorly to a majority of the foods I ate. I grew up with a constant gut ache.

In my teen years, I began suffering from migraines which linked to my congenital heart defect and (unknown to us) food intolerances. As we looked for a solution to improve my health, I turned to allergy testing.

My life quickly changed when my allergy testing revealed a gluten intolerance along with 20+ other intolerances and allergies. This led me to years of new recipes and eating around what foods I could or could not eat.

Through time I healed my gut from SIBO and constant inflammation from years of eating foods my body was struggling to digest. Soon after, the consistent migraines disappeared to.

Fast forward years later, I was feeling great. After we welcomed our little one to the world, my perspective shifted again around food. My gut had never felt better and I wanted to enjoy ‘all the things’ together as a family. 

Making the Leap

My husband was the one who inspired me to try making my own homemade sourdough bread. We leapt into research to understand the power of sourdough and the connection with using fermentation to reduce gluten in baked goods.

It took a few tries before I made my own low maintenance sourdough starter from scratch. I then turned the sourdough starter into my first loaf of sourdough bread and never looked back.

This sourdough baking journey has surpassed my wildest dreams. I quickly became inspired to recreate all the foods from my childhood and those I was ‘missing out’ on for years.

From my kitchen to yours, I hope to educate and inspire you to start your sourdough journey.

For my previously gluten free eaters, I know how scary it can be to try a food you have reacted to in the past. I hope to encourage you to incorporate sourdough recipes and can enjoy a broader selection of foods.

Join me and enjoy some of the best sourdough recipes of your dreams, making you feel connected to your roots and fueling your heart (and belly) along the way!

Acts 2:46 every day they met together, shared bread, ate together and were glad.

All the best,
Hailey 

Diving in Deeper

Due to my history with a gluten intolerance, I have not quite jumped the ship of using flour in a recipe without fermenting it. A lot of the traditional ‘sourdough discard’ recipes simply implement discard without fermenting it.

For this reason, you will see many recipes with two options –
1. ‘stir and go’ (using gluten free flour or all purpose flour)
2. long fermented (24+ hour fermentation)

These two options provide flexibilty and recipe testing. A majority of the recipes on the Rooted at Heart blog, like these sourdough donuts made with lemon poppyseed, are tested this way.

Sourdough is very forgiving. There are a lot of rules to be broken and recipes to be made along the way.

As a busy mom, I am an advocate for making sourdough work for your schedule. There are options to pause the sourdough process and pick it up later. Our recipes and sourdough educational content showcase this.

I work a full time job in hotel sales in addition to this blog. When not working, our family is always together. We spend lots of time outdoors, walking and biking together, planting cut flowers or maintaining our garden.

When my feet are kicked back, I love to read books and sip tea.

And of course you can always find me with some chocolate chips in hand and flour on my shirt.

Sitting down does not last for long, though, as my little ones are always tugging on my shirt asking when we are going to ‘make a recipe’ together.

My favorite sourdough recipes are sourdough pretzel bites and sourdough cookies.

There are a variety of recipes to try on this blog. My favorites are (of course) a loaf of sourdough bread. Sourdough pizza crust and sourdough bagels with chocolate chips are great choices, too.

Contact Me

Send me a message, a recipe you would love for us to create, or just to say hello!

I am always available to connect and collaborate. You can also reach me by emailing [email protected] or find me on a channel below.


My Favs

Family

My loves

Drink

Tea

recipe

Pretzel Bagels

time of day

Morning

Try some of our reader favorites! These sourdough recipes are tried and true.