How I Discovered Texas Juniper Yeast for Sourdough
- Mollie Engelhart
- Aug 31
- 2 min read
How I Discovered Texas Juniper Yeast for Sourdough
When we moved from California to Texas, I brought two very special sourdough starters with me: one gifted by my aunt and another—a very old one—from my stepmother, with roots all the way back to Austria. These starters had served us faithfully in California, giving us beautiful loaves of bread week after week.
But here in Texas, something was different. Despite our confidence and experience, our bread came out oddly shaped, dense, and lacking the rise we were used to. Week after week, loaf after loaf, it just wasn’t working.
I began to wonder: maybe what we needed wasn’t just persistence, but a new starter—one that belonged to this place. Something that carried the wild yeast of Texas itself.
Foraging for Yeast in the Texas Hill Country
It was January, with little growing outside—no fresh fruit, no wildflowers. But if you’ve ever spent time in Central Texas, you know one thing thrives year-round: cedar trees. (Though they’re actually Ashe juniper, everyone here calls them cedar.)
The trees were heavy with small, pale-blue berries dusted in a white coating of wild yeast. I picked a handful and carried them home, curious to see if they might hold the answer.
In a quart jar, I combined the juniper berries with filtered water and flour. To my surprise, within three days the jar was alive—bubbling, frothy, and yeasty. My husband tested it on our bread the very next day, and the loaf rose beautifully.
From Foraging to the Farm Table
That humble jar of wild juniper yeast became the foundation for all of our baking here in Texas. To this day, every loaf of sourdough bread, every cinnamon roll, and every pizza crust at The Barn at Sovereignty Ranch is made with our very own Texas-foraged juniper starter.
It’s a reminder that bread isn’t just flour, water, and salt. It’s a collaboration with the living place you call home. The wild yeast that surrounds us is as much a part of the land as the soil beneath our feet—and when you bake with it, you taste not just bread, but the story of a place.
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