Michael Kalanty

Michael Kalanty is an author, professional bread baking instructor, and bakery product developer. He’s written baking curriculums for culinary schools across the United States. His textbooks have won awards like “Best Bread Book in the World”® at the Paris Cookbook Awards, have been translated into Portuguese, and are used as course textbooks for professional baking programs around the world. As the Executive Pastry Chef for the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, CA, USA he developed their degree-granting bakery program. For his in-classroom success with students, he was awarded “Best Instructor of the Year”. Twice. He later served as the Director of Boulangerie for the system of Le Cordon Bleu schools in North America. His breads won TWO first place prizes at the Tiptree World Bread Awards at the International Bakery Expo in Las Vegas recently. Michael’s writing style is conversational while explaining complex processes, making his readers feel they are a student in one of his bread baking classes. He is an enthusiastic educator to his very core. After graduating from college with a degree in theoretical mathematics, his initial career as a high school physics teacher was put on pause when he enrolled in architecture graduate school. For his dissertation, he travelled to the Île de France region to study the flying buttress—the artistic and engineering innovation of medieval cathedrals. In Reims, France he met a baker who had recently opened a boulangerie just north of Paris and was in need of a motivated apprentice. Michael completed his thesis requirements and decided to stay in France and begin his bread baking apprenticeship. On his return to the US, Michael was invited by San Francisco’s California Culinary Academy to develop and teach their first baking & pastry program. The school was later purchased by Le Cordon Bleu International who appointed him the Director of Boulangerie for all of their American schools. He’s the proud dad of a 30-year old sourdough starter named Lucky Lady, in honor of his little beagle who faithfully kept him company night after night in bakery. She’s now showcased as #99 in the collection of the Puratos Sourdough Library in St. Vith, Belgium. The only one of its kind, the Sourdough Library aims to safeguard sourdough diversity around the globe and our collective sourdough heritage and baking knowledge. All the recipes in How To Bake SOURDOUGH Bread were developed using his treasured starter. Michael’s industry certifications include Executive Pastry Chef, Culinary Educator, and Master Taster. Currently, he spends his time training industry professionals and providing R&D talent for bakeries and manufacturers large and small. Online, you can find him at Craftsy teaching whole grain breads. At the Artisan Baking Center at Central Milling in Petaluma, CA, his newest online class is “Discovering Focaccia”. He lives in San Francisco, CA, USA.