New organic Bakery in Lordship Lane...

[Louisa]

Moos Wrote:

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> Which Tesco loaf do you like, Louisa? I do like a

> good buy tip.

I buy a variety but I find the finest range of farmhouse oameal batch one of the best, the multiseed is pretty damn lovely too. As for the white bread, well the tiger bread isnt just good value for money but it lasts and never falls to crumbs like it seems to do in rival supermarkets. I do like the fresh sandwich loaf too.

Louisa.

[Cassius]

I like the Sainsbury's Granary Harvest loaf - ?1.05 so a good bit cheaper than a Hovis. Not impressed by Waitrose and though Morrisons loaves all look really nice they have been a bit of a disappointment in the taste stakes.

[EDL]

Best hot cross buns then, anyone? So far I have sampled from EDD, Blackbird and Lucas. So far EDD is the winner - plenty of fruit and spice. Steeply priced at 85p each but I shouldn't really be stuffing in more than one anyway.

Supermarket suggestions also welcome...although if you're going to say Tesco I hope that the small local branch around the corner does them.

[david_carnell]

Without wishing to sound preachy or snobbish please can I counsel people against buying supermarket bread (especially non-organic). It is created using the Chorley-Wood Bread Process (CBP) of which I cannot speak ill too strongly.

Essentially, to create cheap, easy-rise bread whilst using nutritionally worthless, over-processed grain, the bread is mixed with a high proportion of vegetable fats. This gives supermarket bread its overly-elastic properties that are unmissable in supermarket bread. But this comes at a cost to your health and your palette.

CBP produced bread contains much higher quantities of salt (due to the lack of flavour in the bleached wheat used) and higher quantities of yeast (to guarantee fully risen bread every-time) which has been attributed as a factor in the growth of bread/wheat/yeast-intolerances. And then there are the hidden vegetable fats. Stealth fat is a growing problem - these are the fats that we don?t know are there. We expect there to be fat in a chocolate bar. But we don?t expect 3 slices of some breads to have as much fat as that chocolate bar. It does.

The only reason it is there is to help make bread quicker to make and make it last longer on the shelf thus creating larger profits for the supermarkets. This bread is inferior in flavour and all-round quality to the breads that small, independent bakers are producing all over SE London are producing fresh, every day. See here and here for example. These people are trying to provide you with a high-quality, high-nutrition product. It's expensive. Good flour, highly trained staff (not some Sainsbos student who can open and close a pre-set oven door) and high street rents. It all costs. A lot.

But please, I urge you, seek them out, try their produce and talk to them about their passion for bread. Sourdoughs, rye-breads, Pain-de-Campagne - stuff you'd never see inside a supermarket - these things are fabulous examples of a craftsman at work. And you can tell when you eat it.

Bread should cost more than we pay in supermarkets. In fact it does. Supermarkets will sell it as a loss-leader and then shaft you on other products you don't know the cost of. These bakers are not trying to fleece you - they are trying to feed you a healthy foodstuff and make a small profit to make a living. If they could sell it cheaper, they would. So please, support them, buy from them and eat their bread. It'll make you feel better.

[Cassius]

But all I want is a piece of toast for breakfast!

[Jeremy]

The "in-store bakery" bread in Sainos tastes fine to me, especially the granary one. But frankly I don't really care enough about bread to make a special journey for it, and I probably only eat it at home around once a fortnight anyway.

As a general rule I don't really care for the usual polythene-wrapped sliced loaves, but they serve a purpose too.

[Louisa]

EDL Wrote:

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> Best hot cross buns then, anyone? So far I have

> sampled from EDD, Blackbird and Lucas. So far EDD

> is the winner - plenty of fruit and spice.

> Steeply priced at 85p each but I shouldn't really

> be stuffing in more than one anyway.

Has to be Ayres in Nunhead, they have used the same recipe since 1955 and they are absolutely gorgeous.

Louisa.

[vinceayre]

David,

You are 100% on the mark with your very well informed post, shame more people don't know this.

Louisa,

Thank you for your very nice comment, at this stage during Easter i am generally sick of the sight of hot cross buns but still managing to eat more than i should this year, quality control !!

Vincent Ayre

[Sherwick]

i can't stand sourdough.

[cate]

vinceayre Wrote:

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> David,

>

> You are 100% on the mark with your very well

> informed post, shame more people don't know this.

>

> Louisa,

>

> Thank you for your very nice comment, at this

> stage during Easter i am generally sick of the

> sight of hot cross buns but still managing to eat

> more than i should this year, quality control !!

>

> Vincent Ayre

Hey Vincent, Do you have any low GI hot cross buns?

[vinceayre]

Cate

No sorry but it is an idea we are thinking of for next year as well as spelt and honey.

Vincent Ayre

[chrisz]

Dear Vincent,

aside from the delicious wholemeal loaf and rolls, will you be introducing other wholemeal products in the future, perhaps a bloomer or sub rolls?

chrisz

[vinceayre]

Chrisz,

Wholemeal bloomers never seem to work as they always look flat unless you bake them so much that they look burnt. Subs though are a good idea, i will see what we can do.

Vincent Ayre

[[email protected]]

Love Ayres the Bakers!!!! I'm From the US where people would give anything to have an alternative to supermarket bread - here we have an entire blogs worth to choose from! Be thankful and stay out of the supermarket bakery department - local family run bakers such as Ayres are not as 'fancy pants' as some of the LL establishments (who remembers when Franklin's was a cafe behind the antique market on Camberwell Road?) - but do fantastic things at reasonable prices. On the subject of Turkish bread, there is a Turkish market in Streatham on the corner of Streatham High Road and Wyatt Park Road which sells freshly baked oval-shaped loaves all day long for 60p each!!!

[cate]

The Greek bakery in Camberwell Church Street has good sesame seed bread. It's the only sort I have tried in there. And it is open 7 days a week.

[cate]

The Greek bakery in Camberwell Church Street has good sesame seed bread. It's the only sort I have tried in there. And it is open 7 days a week.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Amen to that. There are many things I love about the US, but the bread isn't one of them!

[SeanMacGabhann]

Amen to that. There are many things I love about the US, but the bread isn't one of them!

[Horsebox]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

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> >

> Amen to that. There are many things I love about

> the US, but the bread isn't one of them!

Although, there is a large sourdough subculture (arf arf) originating on the West Coast.

I do a fair bit of bread baking at home, using my own sourdough starter, and have found some of the more inspirational recipes come from the US.

[Horsebox]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

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> >

> Amen to that. There are many things I love about

> the US, but the bread isn't one of them!

Although, there is a large sourdough subculture (arf arf) originating on the West Coast.

I do a fair bit of bread baking at home, using my own sourdough starter, and have found some of the more inspirational recipes come from the US.

[dbboy]

Totally support the recommendation fo rteh greek bakers in Camberwell, also the Ingles the bakers in Lewisham by the fruit and veg market and finally cougflans in Croydon. Supermarket bread is acceptable dependant on how good the baker "on duty" is, at one end of the scale the bread can be well baked and teh other really poor.

[vinceayre]

Horsebox,

There is a fantastic book called Artisan Baking across America that goes from coast to coast looking at all the top class artisan bakers in the USA. A worthwhile read if you have anorak tendencies about sour doughs *takes his anorak off as its quite mild at the mo*, also Elizabeth David English Breads and yeast raised goods is pretty much the "Escoffier Ma Cuisine" of the bread world.

Vincent Ayre

[Horsebox]

Thanks, Vince. I'll have a search for them.

I am getting slightly obsessed with my starter and the different breads that it produces dependent on the conditions and method used.

One downside to good homemade bread: the very fine dusting of flour that seems to get everywhere in my flat (td)

[vinceayre]

Abnormal obsessions regarding starters, levans and poolish are to be wholehartedly encouraged and flour dust is not be sniffed at either. I often bore my family rigid over dinner telling them about some new cake or bread until my son points out i smell like a doughnut and should shut up.

Vincent Ayre

[Lizziedjango]

All this is very interesting but quite what it has to do with that 'organic' bakery in Lordship lane...I don't know. I haven't been in there since, and have opted for massive loaves of Polish Rye bread which are really inexpensive. They only have about 5 (natural) ingredients in them and are delicious. In these credit crunch times I just can't afford to pay loads of money for a tiny loaf, even if it is 'organic'.

I am much less 'prone# to getting organic stuff at the moment (apart from carrots, milk, yoghurt) as I can't afford it.