We had another great breadmaking course here on Saturday, with enthusiastic students creating lots of lovely loaves. One of my students took some great photos of the produce, which you can find on this Flickr set. Said student also happens to be the head honcho at School of Everything, which you should definitely check out – did you know they now have 9,000 teachers worldwide teaching anything from maths to martial arts, amazing! The next ‘Bread: back to basics’ course is on the 17th April.
So about three weeks ago I went to visit the historic Charlecote Mill in Warwickshire, where I had a private tour from John Bedington the Miller. When I got back from holiday I was champing at the bit to try out the wholemeal flour I had taken home, so much so that the sourdough starter was whipped out of the fridge and refreshed before i’d even taken my coat off. I keep a white sourdough starter, and taking John’s advice, I wanted to include a decent percentage of strong white flour to create a light, wholesome loaf. So I made it with a high percentage of sourdough starter (40% of dough weight), but all the remaining flour was Charlecote Mill standard wholemeal flour. A 67% hydration dough and a long, cool, overnight bulk fermentation led to a light, wholesome loaf, full of flavour and a sense of history and place.
That was two weeks back, and since then i’ve managed to organise to get a 32kg sack of flour dropped off this week, so after a little more experimentation I’m hoping to add a local, wholemeal sourdough loaf to the standard loaves I produce for the community bakery every Friday.
Bread is one of my favourite things in the world. I get a bit obsessive about it sometimes and do rash things like build an earth oven in my back garden or quit my job to set up a community bakery. I also love teaching, which is what I’ve done for the NHS for the last 4 years as a community nutritionist. Starting Loaf Cookery School has been an amazing chance for me to bring these things together, and courses like last Saturday’s Bread: Back to Basics have utterly convinced me that I’m doing the right thing. Not only were they an excellent group of people eager to provide fresh wholesome bread for their households, but one of them secretly left me a little message on the chalkboard that made me smile from ear to ear when my wife discovered it halfway through the evening (see picture). The group went home with armfuls of bread: wood-fired white loaves and sourdough baton’s, wholemeal seeded batch rolls, ciabatta, fougasse, brioche dough, and a belly-full of pizza. A thoroughly enjoyable day all round I’d say!
As a baker, or even just as a passionate foodie, it’s important to me to get up close and personal with the ingredients that I’m putting into my food and into my mouth. I was delighted therefore to have the opportunity to have a private tour around Charlecote Mill in Warwickshire the other day after a cheeky off-the-cuff phone call to John Beddington, the master miller. I don’t use John’s flour, yet, but nonetheless it is wonderful to see a craftsman at work, turning inedible raw wheat grains into beautiful soft wholemeal flour.
In a way John’s story is a sad one, and it speaks of this country’s increasing love affair with bad bread over the last few decades. John has been milling at Charlecote for 26 years now, and has leased the building for more than 30. In the first few years John supplied six local bakeries, including the (sadly no longer) Raddlebarn bakery in Selly Oak, Birmingham, but now John only supplies one bakery, and it’s not even that local, down in Oxford. However John is still managing to run his business, and has found an unexpected market for his flour. John principally mills three types of flour at Charlecote. The standard wholemeal flour is made from local Warwickshire wheat and milled to the right grade for chapatti flour, which John sells direct to the Indian and Pakistani community in Coventry, delivering door to door. 
He also sells maize flour to the same community. Being Soil Association certified, John produces an organic wholemeal flour too, which is milled from two local wheats from Warwickshire and Worcestershire, as well as a bit of organic wheat from Kazakhstan, to improve the mix.
Charlecote Mill itself is a charming building, and one that John clearly loves dearly. It is an isolated building, standing on the meandering river Avon between the villages of Hampton Lucy and Charlecote. In it’s current construction it’s been there since 1806, but John believes there was a mill on the spot for several centuries before that. It is driven by two water wheels, which through an impressive network of bone-crunchingly powerful cogs power two stone mills on the first floor of the building, which are making the current batch of wholemeal flour as we visit. 
Up in the attic of the building John shows us a large grain store, and the pulley system that allows mill operation to be a one man job. Sacks of flour are strewn everywhere on the ground floor, and the chute from the mill upstairs churns out soft wholemeal flour in a steady stream, like it has for hundreds of years. It’s a romantic scene. John sells me a couple of bags of flour, and we bid farewell, for now.
Without my sourdough starter and having been in a poorly equipped holiday cottage kitchen, I haven’t yet used the flour. However i’m envisioning a part wholemeal sourdough loaf, made with a good percentage of white leaven. I’m hoping this will create a light but wholesome loaf, full of flavour, and a sense of history. I’ll be reporting back on my search for a more local loaf in the coming weeks, stay tuned…
The first rule of bread club is…
Next week Loaf launches it’s ‘bread club’, where we’ll be baking bread every Friday for up to 20 monthly subscribers. Subscribers pay up front for a months worth of bread, and then pick up their delicious loaf from Cotteridge on a Friday evening – simple! There are still some places left for subscribers so if you have any friends who live or work in the Cotteridge area, please tell them about Loaf Community Bakery’s bread club. If you want to subscribe or enquire, just email bread@loafonline.co.uk.
We’re also going to be supplying one or two other places wholesale, where you can sample our bread. Capeling & Co, the excellent new cheese shop on York Road in Kings Heath are stocking Revolution Rye on a Saturday, last week they sold out super fast, so get down there early if you want some. Friday and Saturday customers of Farm Fresh Organics veg box scheme can also now order Revolution Rye.
If you’re thinking about subscribing to Loaf Community Bakery’s ‘bread club’, where you get a weekly loaf of bread in return for a monthly subscription of £11, then this Friday, 8th January, you have the opportunity to buy a sample loaf before the scheme gets in full flow on the 22nd of January. These loaves must be pre-ordered by 11am Thursday morning, and will be ready for collection from Cotteridge between 4 and 7.30pm on Friday. The two loaves available to order are:
Revolution Rye (pictured above) – A 100% rye sourdough bread. This loaf is baked with a 2-year old rye sourdough starter, and UK-grown organic light rye flour, topped with pumpkin and sunflower seeds. It has an amazing depth of flavour and surprising moisture. Like a good cheese or wine it gets better with age, and is at it’s best 2 or 3 days after baking. It will be in good condition for 5-7 days. Approx 800g, £2.75.
Cotteridge Sourdough – Flour, water, salt, wild yeasts. Nothing else. A loaf born and raised in Cotteridge using a 4-year old wheat sourdough starter, and UK-grown organic white flour. This is a great everyday bread that has a subtle sourness, light airy crumb, and a hint of smokiness from the wood-fired oven it is baked in. It keeps well for 5 days, and freezes well too. Approx 800g, £2.75.
If you’d like to preorder one (or two) of these loaves for collection on Friday between 4 and 7.30, please email tom using bread@loafonline.co.uk before 11am on Thursday 7th January, and I will send you the address details.
Loaf Community Bakery is our new bakery in Cotteridge, South Birmingham, specialising in sourdough and other artisan breads. Bread is baked at the home of Loaf director Tom Baker, in both a conventional and traditional wood-fired earth oven. The bakery sells bread through a “˜community supported bakery’ scheme, as well as selling some wholesale to specialist local delis. Bread is made with organic flour, grown and milled in the UK.
Thanks to everyone who responded to the two polls about the bakery – they’ve helped inform what day we’re going to bake, and the price. I’ve set the price by taking the mean of all the options voted for, and multiplying it by 4 for a months worth of bread.
Loaves are going to be baked on a Friday, and need to be collected that evening. Collection is from Cotteridge currently, although an alternative Saturday collection point will be arranged depending on the location of subscribers. A large white sourdough (Cotteridge Sourdough) and a large 100% rye sourdough (Revolution Rye) are available initially. Both breads keep well for 5 days and are suitable for freezing. Other specialities such as brioche and ciabatta will be available occasionally on a first-come first-served basis.
Invest in Loaf Community Bakery and subscribe now for just £11 a month!
We’ll be supplying a weekly loaf to subscribers from mid-January onwards, so get in touch soon if you want to subscribe as we can only take a limited number – email tom@loafonline.co.uk to register your interest.
Meanwhile, answer this poll:
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The new year brings big news for loaf – we are launching Birmingham’s first community supported bakery. What the heck is a community supported bakery I hear you ask? The idea is simple, and it’s borrowed from the American community supported agriculture (CSA) model. Each month you ‘subscribe’ to a farm (or in this case, a bakery), giving a set amount of money upfront. Because of your monthly investment and commitment to the farm (bakery), the farmer (baker) has a guaranteed income and so can invest in equipment, tools, supplies, labour etc, in order to repay your investment with an agreed amount of produce every week. The farmer (baker) gets some security and a leg-up in surviving against the industrial food system, and you get wholesome produce, produced responsibly and sustainably, at a fair price.
Loaf Community Bakery will be launching in January 2010, and will provide bread to a limited number of monthly subscribers. Some of our bread may also be available at a local retail outlet for those who don’t want to commit to subscribing. However for the immediate future this will be a very limited scheme, we’ll take up to about 20 subscribers who’ll need to be able to collect their weekly loaf from Cotteridge, South Birmingham, although we will look at an additional pick-up point depending on demand. The bread will be mainly, but not exclusively sourdough, and mainly made with UK-grown organic wheat and rye flour. There’ll definitely be a white sourdough loaf and a 100% rye (which is almost impossible to find these days, especially fresh). Over the next few weeks, we’ll be asking you on here and on twitter how Loaf Community Bakery can best serve you – what day, time, price, variety etc. In the meantime if you have any thoughts or questions please leave them in the comments section below, or send an email to tom@loafonline.co.uk.
If you’ve read this far, why not answer this poll:
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Still time to respond to our last poll too:
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In less than a weeks time I make my speaking debut representing Loaf, where I have the pleasure of ranting about my favourite subject, food, at Birmingham’s inaugural ‘Green Drinks‘ event. I am titling my talk ‘bread and the environment: towards a greener loaf’. The event takes place at Locanta Resaurant in the Jewellery Quarter, from 6.30pm on Tuesday 3rd November. Full details at the bottom of the post.
I have a strict 10 minute time limit to introduce the topic, and my job is to spark off some lively debate. I’ll be talking about the problems with manufactured bread from the big bakeries to set the scene, 
and be profiling some alternative ways in which we can get our daily loaf, hopefully slightly ‘greener’. I’ll be talking about Sustain’s Real Bread Campaign too, which you can sign up to here if you haven’t already.
Green Drinks is a loose international network encouraging people who live in a certain locality, and who work or are interested in environmental issues, to meet up once a month to debate, network, drink, eat, and socialise. There are over 600 green drinks groups across the world. Find out more at www.greendrinks.org. Birmingham’s Green Drinks is being organised by Malcolm Currie of Globally Local. Here are the details:
Date: Tuesday 3rd November. Time: 6.30 for 7pm
Venue: Locanta Restaurant, 31 Ludgate Hill, St Pauls Square, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham B3 1EH
Other stuff: You can eat in the restaurant whilst we talk, or just come for a drink. Ekran, our host, will be putting on some tasty fare, and I’ll be bringing a couple of loaves of sourdough for you to try if you never have before. It’d be helpful for Malcolm to know numbers beforehand, so if you’re thinking of coming along, drop him an email at dmc@globallylocal.net.
The race is on for Lammas now, Just 4 more whole days to finish the bread oven in time for the ancient harvest festival. Over the last couple of days, I’ve finished the brickwork for the plinth and filled it with clay and rubble:
This was filled nearly to the brim, and then the last 2 inches was just sand. Next I used block paving blocks to form the eventual oven floor, making sure it was nice and level;
Drawing a chalk line to mark out the perimeter of the oven cavity; Continue reading Dreaming of an earth oven – part 3
I’m rubbish at laying bricks. That’s my overall conclusion from the last few days of oven-building. ‘Leave it to the professionals’ would have been a good mantra, unfortunately I went for ‘rustic’ instead – perfect applied to bread, worrying when applied to load-bearing structures. Ah well, I’m sure it’ll hold, and at least it’s level. I’m not quite there yet, got a couple of courses to go until I can fill the middle with rubble and start building my oven on top – it’s been cheap so far though, only £50 to get the entire foundations and plinth built (i’ve been skip-diving for bricks for several weeks now)!
Next week comes the big push – I’ve got the week off work to build the actual oven, and with help pledged from a couple of people, that should be plenty of time. I’m still hoping to get finished in time for the Lammas harvest festival on 1st August, although I won’t be able to bake in it right away, it needs a few weeks to dry out. Though I will start the hunt for some local flour and recreate the effect of an earth oven by baking a ‘local loaf’ on a slab of granite in my regular oven. Check out the Real Bread Campaign for more details of the ‘local loaves for Lammas’ initiative and to check other festival celebrations near you. In the meantime if anyone knows of any good locally (to Birmingham) grown and milled flour, please leave a comment below…
www.earthovens.co.uk started it – a Sunday afternoon’s lazy random browsing on the internet clicking from link to mindless link, and all of a sudden I’d found my new project – I wanted an earth oven!!! So I enrolled on the course, last May, on a rainy Herefordshire weekend, and spent two days with 8 fellow dreamers learning how to build a traditional bread oven out of mud. A fab weekend it was too, despite the inclement weather – excellently facilitated by the knowledgeable and laid back Richard Scadding, and hosted in a friends idyllic converted chapel in the Marches, complete with existing bakehouse and earth oven, which produced some fine baked goodies throughout the weekend.
Anyway, that was 2008, enough deliberation. I have been champing at the bit for over a year now, and finally my own project is under way – I’m aiming to finish in time for Lammas, the ancient harvest festival celebrated by baking a loaf with autumns first grain, on 1st August. Check out the Real Bread Campaign for other events happening in celebration of Lammas.
I’ll be hijacking loafonline to chart the highs and lows of the project over the next few weeks, and if anyone wants to get involved then drop me a line at info@loafonline.co.uk – any willing feet for puddling, or bricklaying expertise will be gratefully received! I’m also hoping to share the finished oven too, not just keep it to myself, perhaps get some community baking going – so if this sounds up your street, do get in touch.
This weekend, with a little help, the foundations got dug, and the concrete got poured. I’ve also had a shelter/bakehouse built by a carpenter friend, which eventually will have a sedum roof on top. The foundations are a foot deep as I think the plinth and oven combined will potentially weigh a couple of tons! As the photos show, the plinth is circular and about 4 foot across. The concrete was poured on Sunday and is nice and hard already so I should be all set for starting the brickwork this weekend, I’ll let you know how I get on!
Tom.