The 2 Countries Where You Can Drop Your Sourdough Starter Off At Daycare - Tasting Table

"Fresh baked sourdough is many things - it's chewy, light, tangy, crusty, bubbly and fluffy. But it can also be a pain to make, especially if you maintain your own living sourdough starter. To keep it active, you need to feed it every day, which becomes cumbersome pretty quickly. If you live in Sweden or Denmark, however, you can drop your starter off at a daycare when you need some time off."

"The idea is thought to have originated in Sweden, though no one really knows who first came up with it. Around 2013, the owners of a Stockholm bakery, RC Café (formerly RC Chocolat), decided to start offering a sourdough hotel service to travelers. The business has multiple locations, including an 24-hour outpost at Arlanda Airport, where people can drop off their starters before boarding their flights and pick it up upon their return."

Sourdough starters require daily feeding to stay active, making maintenance time-consuming for home bakers. In Sweden, some bakeries offer sourdough 'hotels' that feed and maintain starters while owners travel. RC Café in Stockholm began offering sourdough hotel service around 2013 with multiple locations, including a 24-hour outpost at Arlanda Airport, accepting drop-offs before flights. RC Café charges about $3 per day or $12 per week and regularly feeds and discards starter to control size. A few local services have opened and closed, and The Sourdough Inn near Copenhagen operates a pop-up inn with pick-up, weekly fees, and rehabilitation services.

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