Real Bread @Breadshare Community Bakery Part 2

Along with the little bready treats I picked up at Whitmuir on Saturday I also bought a gigantic loaf of Border Country Loaf.  

This loaf is made with a french wheat leaven and has a lovely soured aroma and taste with a really soft chewy texture.  The loaf I bought was a day old and still super soft.  I purposely bought it day old because I had planned on making a panzanella for my supper...something to make the bread the centre piece of my meal.  

Traditionally panzanella uses stale bread but I never seem to have any of that in my house so I just use fresh bread.  This loaf was perfect.  I had planned on making enough for one dinner with some leftover as a snack...but, well...I ended up eating it all.  

In a large salad bowl I put half a thinly sliced red onion with 1Tbsp of red wine vinegar and 1 small clove of minced garlic.  I let the vinegar soften the onions for a few mins while I seeded and chopped 2 largish tomatoes and then added those into the onions with some salt, sugar and then about 1/4 of the loaf of bread cut into cubes and a good glug of walnut oil.  I mixed it all up and let it sit while I fried 4 rashers of streaky bacon and then added the bacon and the oil into the bread mixture.  

And then sat down to enjoy!

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Real Bread @Breadshare Community Bakery Part 1

On Saturday, fellow cake lady and real bread enthusiast Fiona and I embarked on a short road trip down to the Scottish Borders to a town called Lamancha.  Just past the hub of this tiny town is an organic farm called Whitmuir and nestled into one of the outbuildings on the farm is the Breadshare Community Bakery.  

The bread made by the team at Breadshare is sold through the farm shop at Whitmuir but we were lucky to have been offered the chance to have a look around the bakery itself.  Geoff and Debra, who have recently been appointed to manage the bakery, took Fiona and me through their real bread methods and ethos.  

The bread is made with the minimum of ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast or leaven and is left to prove for a minimum of 4 hours. Debra and Geoff are clearly enthusiastic about their project, and it is infectious.  Debra showed us some small containers of leaven she was testing for a workshop with the local scout group.  By sharing methods and knowledge with local children, and adults alike, they hope to encourage more people to enjoy making bread.   

I could go on and on about our visit but I think that the big message I took away from it was that baking bread...on this level...is really amazing.  Debra did mention that when they first started everything was very exact, but now they feel more free in their baking, it's more of a fluid process. I can barely imagine baking with 1kg of flour, let alone 20kg.  It is seriously technical and scientific, it is a challenge, and it is something that the Breadshare Community Bakery has embraced.  

To bring home with me I bought a Cardamom Almond Roll...totally delicious enriched dough with cardamom slathered with frangipane, rolled up covered in flaked almonds and an egg wash and baked. Normally I am a sucker for an almond croissant but there was something much more satisfying about this roll, perhaps it was the cardamom.  

I also picked up this Cheese Scroll.  It is mixture of rye and wheat dough mixed with cheese and then rolled.  I've only nibbled at the edges so far...

Geoff and Debra were kind enough to offer us some samples not only of something new they are developing (croutons and crisp breads using left over breads) but they also sent us on our merry way with a little pot each of the Breadshare rye leaven to get experimenting with.  

Breadshare is not for profit, which means that they can really focus on slow fermentation, the process and the ingredients that go into making their breads. You can buy Breadshare Community Bakery breads through Whitmuir Farm in Lamancha or in Edinburgh at St. Mary's Market on Saturdays and also at Margiotta on Dundas Street.  The bakery also featured in an episode of Landward earlier in April.   

Thank you again to Geoff and Debra for letting us have a nosey around the bakery.  It was a really lovely introduction to community baking I only wish I was able to get down more to volunteer.  I should note that the bakery isn't normally open to the public.  

Piggies on the farm! I couldn't resist...

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