Slow dough. Early bread.
Sourdough that proofs for 36 hours, bakes before dawn and reaches your door in Bristol by half past seven.
Thirty-six hours. Mostly waiting.
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9:00, hour 12
Mix
Maud, flour, water and salt, squeezed together by hand. It looks like nothing yet.
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Hours 13 to 17
Fold
Four rounds of stretch and fold, half an hour apart. The dough turns smooth, fills with gas and grows by half.
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14:00, hour 17
Shape
Each loaf is pulled tight into a ball and laid seam up in a floured cane basket.
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Hours 17 to 31
Rest
Fourteen hours in the cold room at 4 °C. The yeast slows down; the flavour keeps going.
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4:00, hour 31
Bake
Turned out, scored with a razor and baked for forty minutes at 250 °C with steam. The cut opens into an ear.
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5:00, hour 32
Cool
Out on the rack. The crust crackles as it cools, which bakers call singing.
Four loaves, one starter.
Everything is raised by Maud alone. No commercial yeast, no improvers.
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Country loaf
The house loaf. White and wholemeal wheat, a crust that crackles and an open, glossy crumb.
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Seeded rye
Dense, dark and properly sour, packed with sunflower seeds and flax. Slice it thin; it keeps for a week.
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Oat porridge
Oats cooked the night before and folded into the dough. The softest crumb we bake.
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Focaccia
A tray bake with olive oil, sea salt and rosemary, dimpled by hand.
Order by noon. Wake up to bread.
We bake what is ordered. Anything in by 12:00 is shaped that afternoon, spends the night in the cold room and leaves on our cargo bikes at six.
- Orders close
- Your loaf is shaped
- Ovens on
- Out of the oven
- Bikes leave
- Last door
Meet Maud. Take some of her home.
Maud is our starter: eleven years old, kept in a jar by the ovens and fed rye flour twice a day. On Saturday mornings we show you how to keep one of her daughters alive.
At 22 °C Maud doubles in about 6 hours.
A rule of thumb: roughly twice as fast for every 7 °C warmer.
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Starter and first loaf
Three hours at the bench. You go home with a jar of Maud, your own dough and a loaf we baked earlier.
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The weekend loaf
Mix, fold and shape on Saturday; score and bake your own loaf on Sunday morning.
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Pizza from a starter
Twelve people, one wood-fired oven and a lot of dough.
Come by the shop.
4 Tanner's Yard, Bristol BS2
Four minutes' walk from Temple Meads.
- Tuesday to Friday
- 7:00 to 14:00
- Saturday
- 7:00 to 15:00
- Sunday
- 8:00 to 13:00
- Monday
- Closed, we sleep
Open Tuesday to Sunday from 7:00.
Questions
How long does a loaf keep?
Four or five days in a linen bag or a bread bin, cut side down on the board once it is started. Rye keeps a week. Slice and freeze whatever you will not finish.
Is sourdough easier to digest?
Many people tell us it is, and a long fermentation does break down more of the flour before it reaches you. We are bakers, not doctors, so we will not promise more than that.
Do you bake anything gluten-free?
No. The whole bakery is dusted in wheat and rye flour, so we could not keep anything safely free of it.
Can I have the same order every week?
Yes. Reply to your confirmation email with the word weekly and it repeats until you pause it, at no extra cost.
Where do the bikes deliver?
Anywhere from BS1 to BS8 before 7:30. Further out, collect from the shop from 7:00, or ask us about a Saturday drop.