Like many people, I enjoy baking my own bread—especially this time of year. I baked sourdough on and off for nearly a decade, even having a recipe tested for a James Beard-winning bread cookbook, but I’m not proud to admit it’s been over a year since I baked a proper sourdough loaf.
As a full-time working parent, maintaining a sourdough starter sometimes feels like bringing home another pet. (You know, the kind your child swears they will care for before abandoning all tasks after three days.) You can certainly keep your starter in the fridge for around a week between bakes, but reviving it may take a day or two of feedings, and let’s be real, Will you remember to do this every week? Even the pet snake my son begged for only needs feeding every other week.
It is for people like me that King Arthur Baking Company and FirstBuild, GE Appliances’ product development lab, created the Sourdough Sidekick, a gizmo that automatically feeds and maintains a sourdough starter for you. We wrote about the Sourdough Sidekick when it was first announced in 2025, and now, after trying it for three weeks, I can say that my sourdough-baking dry spell has finally come to an end, perhaps even permanently.
The Sidekick is a Mr. Coffee-sized appliance with a built-in water reservoir, flour hopper, and glass crock with a stirring-paddle lid. I deal with an awful lot of apps in my job, and the Sidekick uses GE’s generic SmartHQ for GE appliances, which isn’t specific to this device and seemed optional.
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