For Lucas Diggle, baking sourdough is an ongoing conversation between tradition, curiosity, and the endless pursuit of craft. With over two decades of professional baking experience, Lucas has built his career at the intersection of production excellence and education. After ten years in King Arthur’s production bakery, he joined the faculty at the King Arthur Baking School in Norwich, Vermont in 2021, where he shares his depth of knowledge with students from all across the country. A Certified Bread Baker through The Bread Bakers Guild of America and a member of the U.S. team at the prestigious Fête du Pain in Paris, Lucas has dedicated himself to helping others engage deeply with the fundamentals and nuances of baking.
This May, Lucas teaches"Variations of Sourdough,"a two-day intensive workshop designed for experienced bakers ready to explore how temperature, hydration, flour selection, and fermentation time all shape sourdough breads. Students will work hands-on with different production methods, taste the contrasts, and leave with practical tools to refine their own sourdough systems.
Before the class, we caught up with Lucas to talk about his path into baking, his approach to teaching, and what students can expect from their time together. In this special extended interview, he shares stories from the bench, lessons from the production floor, and insights into the craft of sourdough that will resonate with bakers navigating everything from daily production to long-term growth.
You’ve been baking professionally for over two decades. What first sparked your interest in baking, and what has kept you engaged with it all this time?
I came to baking quite accidentally. After finishing my undergraduate degree, I started working at a bakery because I was dating a pastry chef who worked there. I had no idea what I was in for. The work was hard, fast paced, and physically and mentally demanding. I loved it. I had no idea how I could acquire the skills I watched the experienced bakers exude on the bench every day. There was something distinguished and almost esoteric about their understanding and I wanted in on it. What I lacked in talent I made up for in hard work.
As an aside, that pastry chef and I now have four children together, and I often invoke this fact as vindication of my initial decision-making process.
Many things keep me engaged with baking. In some ways, I’m chasing the same things I was chasing in those first years—knowledge, understanding, graceful execution. But I realized almost immediately in that first job that baking was something I could spend a lifetime pursuing and refining. It brings together several of my interests: history, chemistry, food, tradesmanship. I could go on and on.
What’s one lesson you learned early in your baking career that continues to guide your approach today?
My very first day on the job, the first thing the pastry chef training me said was, “the state of your bench is the state of your mind.”
What an incredible and useful concept. Mise en place can become something of a way of life, or at least a practical strategy for effectively tackling many of life’s challenges. It’s easy to get in over one’s head in the bakeshop, or to reach beyond one’s grasp. Miseen place can be the difference between success and failure when we’re pushing ourselves, when something unexpected happens, or when we’re striving for that next level.
You’re one of a distinguished number of The Bread Bakers Guild of America's Certified Bread Bakers. What did that certification process mean to you, and how has the Guild influenced your growth as a baker?
The certification process turned out to be more significant than I thought. At the time, I was sort of ticking a box. But the program is an important part of building our professional infrastructure, establishing a shared language and sense of what’s important, and of challenging oneself to grow as a baker.
But the best parts were the connections and camaraderie. I scheduled my test with my friend and colleague from King Arthur’s production bakery, Marc Levy. We traveled together, tested together, and had a great time doing it. I met Arlo Brandl, who was doing his Viennoiserie exam, and we’ve kept up with each other ever since. Getting time with folks like Solveig Tofte and Melina Kelson was great too. Certification turned out to be an exercise in strengthening our connections to one another as bakers. I recommend it to everyone, even experienced, accomplished professionals.
As an organization, the Guild was very influential. When I started baking in the early 2000’s, I instantly had access to the best bakers in America. They would answer my questions on the Guild forum and were generous with their time and knowledge. The publications of the Guild and their sponsorship of the Coupe du Monde teams were very effecting. Getting those spiral bound books of the team’s winning formulas inspired me to keep learning and to try new things. More than anything, the Guild reminded me that I wasn’t alone. Knowing that other people all over the country were getting up to go do the bake was sustaining when things got hard.
After ten years in King Arthur’s production bakery, how did that experience shape the way you teach now at the Baking School?
The bakery during my tenure was no nonsense, but also a lot of fun. It was a baker’s bakery, if that makes sense. There was a real emphasis on quality, ethos, and solid teamwork. So as an instructor, I try to communicate how important it is to establish and work in a culture of excellence. I also know that no one is harder on a baker than they are on themselves. I’ve made every mistake there is and done so on a commercial scale. If we react properly, failure is valuable and can set the stage for higher heights.
For years, I worked with Jeffrey Hamelman, who founded the King Arthur Bakery, and there’s a lot of him in how and why I do what I do. I ask quite a bit of students, but I do everything I can to give them the tools and support they need to accomplish what I ask. We’re nothing without the inter-generational continuum of which we’re a part. Without it, a baker may spend years reinventing the wheel. I try to pass on what others were generous enough to share with me, without reservation or hesitation. I do this even as I marvel at all the things I have yet to learn.
Representing the U.S. at the Fête du Pain in Paris must have been incredible. What was that experience like, and what did you take away from it?
The Fête du Pain was not only a professional highpoint, but one of the most meaningful experiences I’ve ever had. When I stop and think about it, it’s hard to put it into words. To me, being there meant everything. I think at some point most professional bakers wonder if they’re in the right career. I never wonder about that now. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Fête du Pain felt like a kind of absolution. My takeaway is that I made the right choice. All the years, the middle-of-the-night bakes, the twelve-hour days, the falling asleep on the living floor while reading Calvel after work, all of it was worth it.
To be in Paris as a baker, in that city so rich with baking history, to be the guests of the Syndicat des Boulangers du Grand Paris, to be part of the Baker’s Mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral, to share that experience with my friend and teacher, other American bakers, and our French counterparts will remain one of the best experiences of my life.
What inspired the focus on “variations” in sourdough for this upcoming class at King Arthur?
The focus was inspired by a series of conversations with my colleague Blake Olson and my dear friend and teacher, the great baker and chef James MacGuire of Montreal. James has written important work on the history, ingredients, and processes of modern bread production. We have a running correspondence around several of the topics James has raised over the years. For those of us who have been lucky enough to work with him, James’ skill and understanding are immediately apparent. When we were approached about doing a class, Blake and I thought we could put some of these conversations in action and run a class that contrasts various production styles whose differences may seem rather minor but have a palpable effect on the finished products.
The course emphasizes temperature, hydration, and fermentation time. Do you have an example of how changing just one of those variables transformed a loaf?
The most immediate one that comes to mind is the simple shift from liquid to stiff levain. A change in hydration of the levain has a profound effect on the character and quality of the bread, even when all other things are equal. The popularity of liquid levain, which can certainly be used to make good bread, was something we wanted to contrast with other possibilities. I love when we do side-by-side tasting and students get to experience this contrast firsthand.
What’s a common sourdough myth or misunderstanding that you’re hoping to clear up in this class?
How much time do you have? I kid, but I can’t imagine contending with the saturation of contradictory digital information out there today. Two things I think of immediately are the idea that long periods of “cold fermentation” improve flavor, and that mastery involves well-guarded secrets. Retarding the dough certainly changes flavor, but my very favorite, and I would argue the very best breads, do not undergo any time under refrigeration.
As for secrets, there are likely few, if any, and even fewer who “push the envelope.” So much of it has been done before. Too frequently I meet people who describe a method they believe they developed. I have baking texts, in some instances going back hundreds of years, that outline exactly what these folks believe they invented. A month’s internship in Paris and a zeal for Youtube will not yield the subtle treasures of generations. The landscape is full of both well-meaning folks who simply don’t know what they don’t know, and some more opportunistic entities that will gladly entice.
How do you guide students through designing their own breads with intention, especially when there are so many variables at play?
I don’t start with any a priori principles. I suppose my first question is “What do you want to make?” My second question is “Why?” We can go from there. The answers could be anything from trying to recreate a bread from a bakery that was memorable, designing a formula to fit in a certain production timeline, or bringing bread that lives in one’s head to fruition. The impulse is the thing. Sometimes you begin with one idea and then end up somewhere else. It’s all good exercise for the baker.
For someone leaving your class, what’s one practice or mindset you hope they carry with them into their own baking journey?
I hope they carry with them an increased respect for not only what they do, but what others have done before them. I hope they see themselves as part of something greater. I hope they resign themselves to study. I hope it makes them want to teach others. I hope they realize that the bread does not exist to further our ambitions, but that we exist to further the bread. I hope they come away knowing that we are united by what we do and that they are not in it alone.
