The Big Birthday Bake!

penny — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:57:23 +0000

On May 1st we celebrated our first year baking for Wolvercote – a celebration involving balloons, fairy cakes for all our regular customers and a mammoth 12-hour baking session with a variety of different breads. We have come a long way in the last twelve months, making most progress during a day learning from expert baker and teacher Clive Mellum at Shipton Mill. That’s when we started to get the hang of, amongst other things, sourdough starters, looking after ‘mothers’ and a how to prove rye dough in a basket… Clive is an inspirational teacher and it was a privilege to be allowed to benefit from his decades of baking. We have borrowed his concept for rye sourdough loaves with figs and caraway seeds, which are now selling as fast as we can make them – though Fridays and Saturdays are enough extra work, on top of our regular bake. Wholemeal walnut breads are also proving very popular. It all takes time, but that is the real secret of good bread - the longer you give it, the better it gets!

Beyond the Village

penny — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:33:40 +0000

The Campaign for Real Bread Conference, held in Oxford in November 2009, highlighted a number of important issues, including how the big supermarket chains (with the connivance of government) are undermining both the social and nutritional values of our daily bread: fewer bakers, fewer millers, GM farming … unlisted ingredients ….mass medication through the toast on our breakfast tables! I (Penny) arrived at the conference as a relatively new baker, expecting a happy few hours hearing about organic recipes. I came away both angry and inspired. Angry at what I’d been innocently consuming all my life, and the impacts of industrial food production/distribution on baking and farming cultures around the world, and inspired by the idea that we could do something to make a stand against it.

Both of us are increasingly concerned about the way the freedom and autonomy of individuals, as well as nations, is being deliberately eroded. We feel that we are all being lulled into a state of moral lethargy, in which it is much ‘easier’ to leave things to the government(s) to handle. ‘Globalisation’ only intensifies the polarisation between the world’s richest and everybody else. This leaves far too many people either being fed rubbish, or not getting enough to eat at all. (For more info, visit campaignforrealfarming.blogspot.com)

The good news is, we believe that individuals can all make a positive difference to the status quo. Baking real bread for our village, and helping others do the same, is our way of doing just that.

Love Loaves Bakery

The Big Birthday Bake!

Beyond the Village