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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 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.
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.
