Building the bakery…
Today, I’ve been building a warming cupboard - where our dough will bulk-prove. The cupboard will be regulated at around 26 degrees - and to create the space we require for 4 tray racks alongside our deck oven we’re building the cupboard with underfloor heating. Setting the temperatures right is all important at every stage of the baking process - from the raw flour onwards. We’re going to be learning about all of this in a lot of detail in the coming months from our new expert baker - and will report back here.
What you need for a craft organic bakery
A dough mixer
A bulk proving cupboard
A large shaping table
A prover for your pastries etc.
A Sheeter/or laminator for folding pastry to make croissants and viennoiserie
A big ‘deck’ oven - for organic sourdough loaves
A convection/rack oven - for baking pastries
A wood burning oven for woodfired breads and pizzas
Loads of refrigeration
Loads of trays, racks, bannetones, utensils and so on
A really good craft baker
Really good flour
We’ve done a lot of building work over the past year to reach this point, but over the next couple of weeks everything should come together so that we will begin serving loaves, patisserie and amazing wood-fired pizzas. On Monday we’re hoping to receive our 250kg mixer, sheeter, prover and convection oven following some canny ebay buys. On Tuesday we plan to publish our first pizza menu and to start preparing our toppings, on Wednesday we plan to receive our organic flour from Yorkshire Organic Millers, and from Shipton - and then prepare our first dough with Josh’s pre-ferment leaven (containing wild yeast and lactobacillaceae!) On Thursday we plan to prepare our pucks of dough - and by Friday and Saturday night we’ll be turning our the pizzas.
Small batches
Meanwhile this month, we will be making and even selling some small batches of our Sourdough, Wholemeal and Rye, and even some croissants if all goes well. And meanwhile too Anna will be continuing to make our well established malted cobs with inclusions - and turmeric flatbreads - within our restaurant kitchen before we move this through to the new bakery once our big oven arrives.
