Rose Blossom Bakery

In February I took my three children to The V & A Museum.  As we got to the shop I gave them each £10. The speed at which they spent their money was impressive. If it were down to my children we certainly wouldn’t be in a recession.   The persistent request for more money for the rest of the day drove me mad.  The big eyes.  Oh Pleeeease mummy. No I said. No.  I felt mean .. despite being anything but.

They have no idea of the value of money.  Not a clue.  It means so little to my children, and they see me as a permanent source of pocket money.  It’s not right I thought.  I have to teach them the value of a pound.

It was an article by Rose Prince in the Telegraph that grabbed me a few days later, about how her teenagers made their pocket money by running a small bakery.  It was a though a light bulb went off. This .. this is the answer.  It is the way to teach my children the value of money, and as I'd worked out the price of a sourdough loaf to be 35p this seemed like a great way to make some dough !

We sat at the kitchen table for a family conference and agreed that we should have a go ourselves.  I’ll give you three weeks, said my husband, ever the optimist.  The children were ecstatic and decided that the bakery should have the name Rose in it ..  as an acknowledgment to Rose Prince's children’s bakery, and so our bakery is called The Rose Blossom Bakery.

Of course my eldest daughter, who is just nine ( you can see her here in one of the Rachel Ashwell aprons that  I bought the other week) has been making sourdough almost every weekend since we went on a sourdough making course with the lovely Dan Lepard.  Although I did managed to kill the original starter Dan gave to us luckily Andrew Whitley of Bread Matters sent me some more to get going again !

The children designed leaflets, printed them and them posted them through all the neighbours doors, we had our first order  and we were in business! Despite a great start, our first couple of weeks we couldn’t quite get the dough right.  The crumb was too tight and the loaf, although lovely, was just too heavy.


Luckily between a phone call to Dan and a serious adjustment in the water quantities and a lesson & calculation from the lovely Lucas Hollweg (author of Good Things to Eat) we now have the absolute perfect sourdough loaf, and we make 12 loaves at a time. 

The first week we sold 4 loaves, one to a neighbour, one to grandparents and the other two were ordered by aunties.  The second week we added a batch of scones and sold 7 loaves and now we are baking 12 loaves to order and sell out each week.

It is such a wonderful thing to teach my children - the joy of baking, the pride of producing such beautiful bread.  The real life math’s as they count out the change to their customers, who smile and correct them.  They are learning the basics of running a small business and watching as the three of them have decided which jobs they like to do and work it out as a team is wonderful. 

Of course we have had to register the kitchen, I already have my hygiene certificates and a five star rating for my kitchen, (and I am insured through my work by the NFU  .. which incidentally are great at doing this kind of insurance because they often have to help farmers who diversify on to the farmers markets.)

Of course we had to prove my husband wrong .. we are way past three weeks now, and as for teaching my children the value of a pound. ..  when I mentioned how hard to was to earn money last week my children looked bemused, and shrugged off this suggestion with childlike honesty  .. saying they just thought it was just great fun to earn money -  so I'm not entirely sure I got the point I wanted to make over !


The thing that I love the most about our Saturday mornings though, is that our bakery has a sense of community. We have no shop in our village, and the post office was closed several years ago.  There, as we stand at the bottom of the driveway with our beautiful hand made sourdough bread we have met and chatted to more of our neighbors in the last few weeks than we have in the ten years we have lived here.  People stop by and gossip together, neighbours laugh, reminisce and tell stories of the people that lived in our house long ago.  They smile and chat then take home their warm bread, and we become part of the story ourselves.

Blossom

Today is the first day of spring.

I wander outside in the morning with my tea and for just a moment, before the day rushes at me I look at the blossom and remember a poem. 

FROM BLOSSOMS

From blossoms comes 
this brown paper bag

 of peaches
 we bought from the boy

 
at the bend in the road where we turned toward

 
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, 

from hands, 
from sweet fellowship in the bins, 


comes nectar at the roadside succulent


peaches we devour, dusty skin and all, 
 

comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside, 


to carry within us an orchard, to eat


not only the skin, but the shade,


not only the sugar, but the days, to hold


the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into 


the round jubilance of peach

.

There are days we live 


as if death were nowhere 


in the background; from joy

 
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,


from blossom to blossom 

to 
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

- Li-Young Le

Mothers day Sourdough loaf

It’s mother’s day today and Thank goodness I am feeling in somewhat better health. So I for one shall be making my mothers day gift. It’s not a cake, nor is it chocolates or flowers. It’s much more down to earth. I’m making her a loaf of bread, but it’s not just any loaf. I’ve been inspired by a visit to Hambleton bakery ( more on this later in the week ) to make my own sourdough made with wild yeast and to find out more Jeremy Medley of Oundle Mill offered to share his recipe below and demonstrate his techniques with me.

Ingredients

About 1kg of flour ( or so )

2 tps Sea salt

2 tsps Sugar

Tepid water.

To start with you need a cure.

The starter cure “pet”

Use a glass jar or a suitable vessel with a lid if possible.

Blend I cup of warm water and I cup of unbleached strong flour

Place in jar and keep at between 28 and 32 degrees. Do not exceed 38 degrees.

This is the pet! So every 24 hours or so for up to seven days half the mix, throw away one half and add half a cup of flour and half a cup of water again, repeat for at least three days, it will start to cake and bubble. This is normal.

The longer you feed it for the better, but look after the pet! You can store it after the first there days in the fridge, keep feeding though and make sure there is a whole for air to vent, if a brown liquid appears either pour off or stir in, stirring in will increase the sourness. This is the fermented beer smelling liquid. (Don’t drink it!)

Then that’s it - you have the sponge.

To make the bread add one cup of starter and 3 cups of unbleached flour that has 2 teaspoons of salt and two teaspoons of sugar mixed in well. Mix this and knead to a smooth dough, adding a drop of tepid water as needed. This will make two medium sized ball loafs. It’s that simple.

The retained half of the sponge becomes your cure and you must re feed it again for your next batch and keep dividing. Remember you must feed with half water and flour as before. Clean and sterilise your container often. You only want the Pet growing - and nothing else. Leave your bread on the baking tray to prove in a warm environment covered in lightly oiled Clingfilm for about 8 hours. Remove the Clingfilm and pop your two loves into a preheated oven 190 gas mark 5 for about 30 minutes. Check the bread is cooked by tapping the base. It should sound hollow.

(Any cup is fine as long as you use the same cup each time. However I use an American cup, which hold 336 ml.)

You can listen to Making this sourdough recipe on www.prepped.co.uk or listen to BBC radio Northampton 104.2 FM 103.6 FM at 10am this Sunday Morning

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