When Rachel Bachman and her 13 children fled an abusive situation in 2021, it was a quick decision that didn’t allow much time to plan. Yet what she lacked in resources, she made up for with an unwavering faith in God.
“I arrived here with less than $3 in my pocket,” Bachman said of her move from Washington state to Thermopolis. After visiting family in May 2023 Bachman said she fell in love with the area. Having lived on a farm most of her life the small-town environment felt familiar. Bachman knew it would be the perfect place to raise her kids.
During that first visit, a historic wooden house with chipped white paint and an expansive sunroom caught her eye. “I’m like, oh, that house is cute. I love that house. It’s the most beautiful antique, vintage house ever. Like, house of my dreams kind of thing. And then in August 2023, I get this this text from my brother …” Bachman said her brother let her know there was a house in Thermopolis for rent at a good price, but the kicker was she had four days to decide if she wanted it or not. Bachman said yes, sight unseen, not knowing, “It was that house,” she said, “Oh my gosh. It was that house.”
After settling in, Bachman faced the challenge of figuring out a way to support herself and her kids. “Raising my children and homeschooling them is my priority, no matter what.” She knew she needed to figure out something that would allow her to do both, thus the idea of making and selling sourdough bread was hatched. There was one big problem though, she had no idea how.
When she wasn’t cleaning houses for people and attending to her kids, Bachman was in the kitchen, determined to learn the art of sourdough. She enlisted help from micro bakers in California who specialize in sourdough and is grateful for their guidance. “I spent from September to close to December, trying and trying and trying to make sourdough bread. I killed so many starters… I finally made this very pitiful looking little loaf, it was sad, but like, OK, there’s progress. By January, I was selling my first couple of loaves a week, they were still pretty pitiful looking, but people were like, ‘these are good!’ By June, I think I was doing like 40, maybe 50 loaves a week.”
She named her business, “My Baker’s Dozen,’ a clever homage to her 13 kids.
Bachman began attending church in Worland in spring of 2024 and started getting requests for bread from fellow churchgoers. This prompted her decision to sell bread at both the Thermopolis and Worland farmers markets. Her two older daughters took care of the Thermopolis market. Bachman set up at the one in Worland, displaying her loaves of original sourdough, jalapeno cheddar, garlic herb, white chocolate raspberry, cranberry walnut and double dark chocolate on a wooden shelf. Despite being armed with crates of freshly baked bread to restock the shelves after each sale, Bachman still remembers the first week she sold out. “People were like, ‘it’s so good, how do you do this?’ I’m like, I have no idea, this has got to be God, because I am still so new at this.”
Her business took off using the oldest advertising model in the book: make an excellent product, and people will talk. As more people tasted Bachman’s chewy delicious sourdough, the word began to spread. Bachman doubled down to keep up with the demand, “By the middle of summer, we were easily doing 118 loaves a week.”
Baking at this capacity proved to be no small feat. As well as maintaining the inventory required to make her bread by keeping an adequate supply of high-quality yet affordable ingredients, Bachman said, “My tiny kitchen is completely transformed for three days. I bake out of a small regular oven. Our house – I think it’s 117 years old – and you can’t plug in a mixer.” She hand kneads the dough and says she and the older kids do at least 40 hours of work in three days. “It’s not easy because you still have to homeschool. You still have to cook the meals.”
Bachman does not shy away from hard work however, and the blessings she receives are not lost on her. Her sister-in-law gave her a refrigerator as a gift so she could make more bread. Then two Dutch ovens mysteriously showed up on her doorstep. “I still don’t know who from,” she said. Bachman said some ladies taught her how to bake bread in loaf pans with a pan on the top, so now she’s able to bake six loaves at a time.
“It is exhausting, but the people I have met and seeing what God has done … because trying to single-handedly raise this many kids for four and a half years, I have never been left wanting. Every bill has been paid. God has provided so abundantly, so perfectly, you can’t tell me that God doesn’t care and doesn’t see his children.”
Bachman’s eyes well up when she discusses her kids who she considers the biggest blessing in her life. Currently, her youngest is 6, and her oldest is 23. “All I ever wanted to do was to raise children and to live on a farm and cook and clean and bake. That’s what brings me joy, not the hustle and bustle of life. I don’t enjoy that. You know, I always told my parents, I was born 100 years too late.”
She still dreams of living on a farm and would love to build her own home, a home equipped with a large kitchen so she can expand her business. “I like living on a farm. People are like, ‘you realize how much work that is.’ And I’m like, yes, but you don’t know who I am. You know, I’d be OK with going back to the basics – the old way of living – because it was slower, not so chaotic. Growing up, I was the pioneer of the family. I wore the long dresses, and it suited me well.”
Bachman said when she started selling bread, she was hoping to earn a couple hundred dollars a month to supplement the housekeeping work she did to make ends meet, and chip away at debt. She said, “Talk about loaves and fishes being multiplied. I never dreamt that God would have taken it from me just hoping and praying for a couple hundred [dollars] a month to where he has brought it today. It leaves you speechless seeing what God can actually do, played out right in front of you. It has been probably the coolest, honestly, the neatest few years of my life.”
Bachman bakes each loaf to order. Anyone who would like to support her small business and try her incredible bread (bread so tempting you’ll find yourself tearing off chunks to enjoy on the way home) can call or text her at (360) 401-9601 and place an order. Customers can also order online at http://www.hotplate.com/mybakersdozen, however, Bachman says prices are better when you purchase directly through her.