Standing in silence here at Bread Ahead in Borough Market, awaiting our instructions, you could have heard a pin drop. I am here taking a sourdough masterclass and attempting to breathe life into my creation.

Believe me, sourdough is a serious business, and if necessity be the mother of all inventions, then we all need our mother—the flour-and-water starter—to live. But there is something about the atmosphere here that will help like no other.

The air here is alive with the good bacteria needed to kickstart my starter, and with a little luck, it will take, but sadly, baking is about more than just good fortune, for it is in unequal parts a mixture of science, chemistry, love and passion.

You can freestyle a curry, but do the same with sourdough, and all you bake are bricks. One of the most important things for any baker is consistency, the ability to repeat the same actions within the same environment and parameters with accuracy, over and over again.

Now that is not as easy as it sounds, for nothing in life is constant; days change, temperatures vary, as does humidity. It’s different making sourdough in the winter from making it in the summer. And so, a little help can come in handy.

In this case, the consistency cavalry clatters along in the form of some amazing products from Brød & Taylor with the sole aim of transforming baking challenges into simple pleasures.

Company founder, Michael Taylor, built the first folding proofer to help his mother-in-law bake bread in her chilly South Dakota kitchen, and what started as a homemade solution from a small town in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts quickly grew into something bigger, with products like the Sourdough Home and the folding proofer.

The Sourdough Home looks and functions like a small fridge with a twist. Regardless of whether it’s hot or cold outside, set the temperature to suit your schedule, and it gently heats or cools your starter, giving it a stable environment, and there is nothing more a mother likes than stability and routine. It has a removable shelf inside to store multiple jars of mother.

The Brød & Taylor Folding Proofer & Slow Cooker is another revolutionary way to proof dough at home, with this convenient folding proofer. This handy gadget provides the perfect environment for precise and professional control over fermenting and proofing, and when you have finished, it will fold flat in seconds.

Whether it’s proofing your sourdough at a particular temperature or meticulously measuring out your ingredients, the route to baking the perfect loaf of bread is all about precision and consistency.

So no matter your level of experience, you can achieve professional results every time using quality bread-making tools and equipment that was designed to cope with the vagaries in climate found in midwestern U.S states; thus, it can more than deal with whatever Chez Blackmore in South London throws at it.

Quite frankly, the Sourdough Home and the folding proofer have taken my sourdough to the next level and enabled me to bake amazing bread that beats anything you can buy in the shops.

Baking is science, but it’s not rocket science. Consistency, the ability to replicate the same conditions over and over again, is the key to solving those enigmas of home-baking home-goals. You need a Rosetta Stone for successful sourdough, and the Brød & Taylor products are just that.

Now, I can’t guarantee that all this will make you a better baker, but I will guarantee that it will set you on the path to becoming one, and that is a game-changer. Well, it changed my life.