The Traveling Baker

Honey Rye- Fresh Stone-milled Organic Rye, Water, Island Honey,...

Fri, 04 May 2012 22:36:21 -0400

Honey Rye-

Fresh Stone-milled Organic Rye, Water, Island Honey, Salt.

Frontal view of Craigflower/Raynor building from original 1913...

Thu, 03 May 2012 14:21:03 -0400

Frontal view of Craigflower/Raynor building from original 1913 architects drawing. Found while rummaging through City of Victoria as built drawing archives. This is where I’ll be building my new oven and baking bread for this next stage in life.

Working on a formula for a Habitant Loaf, the traditional bread...

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:57:21 -0400

Working on a formula for a Habitant Loaf, the traditional bread of the Quebecois peasant farmers. The photograph shows a habitant baking bread in early Quebec.

"Our guess is that he doesn’t have a card, but if he did it would read: Have Oven, Will Travel. Fry..."

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:13:35 -0500

““Our guess is that he doesn’t have a card, but if he did it would read: Have Oven, Will Travel. Fry comes from a long line of Victoria bakers—the original Fry’s Bakery opened in 1897—and he’s upholding the tradition, barnstorming the provincial capital with his mobile brick oven and loaves to die for.””

- Snippet about me in Western Living Magazine’s Top 40 Foodies Under Forty.

http://www.westernlivingmagazine.com/FD/0312.40-foodies-under-40-2012.html

Whole Wheat Country Loaf made with Metchosin grown wheat and...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:18:38 -0500

Whole Wheat Country Loaf made with Metchosin grown wheat and rye and Saltspring Island Tomme D’or raw milk cheese.

Pain Au Chocolate. You can see the gorgeous layers created by...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:34:17 -0500

Pain Au Chocolate. You can see the gorgeous layers created by this amazing butter from Jerseyland Organics. From Organic milk produced by 100 Jersey Cows in Grandforks BC where the farmers know all their cows by name, not number!

We are the only bakery in town using this butter and it makes all the difference!

Pretzel shaping yesterday morning for Niagara Grocery and...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:32:27 -0500

Pretzel shaping yesterday morning for Niagara Grocery and Fairfield Market.

Good Will

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:05:41 -0500

Hello Folks,

Just wanted to put a slightly ambiguous note out there and encourage you to send as much goodwill our way as possible. We may have found a new home for the bakery but there are still many hurdles to go so keep us in you thoughts and I’ll update you all as soon as I know what is happening.

This weekend you will find our bread and pastries at Niagara Grocery and Fairfield Market on Saturday and Sunday, and bread at the Broken Paddle and Tom Henry’s Farm Store on Sunday.

Fairfield Market and Niagara Grocery have been so fantastic with us over this fall and now into the New Year, demand is really picking up. Saturday you’ll find pretzels and pastries made with local red currants, along with an expanded range of breads including our Whole Wheat Country Loaves, baguettes and a new olive ciabbatta that we are really proud of.

Thanks again for your continued support!

Kneading West

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:34:07 -0500

Border Guard: “What’s your destination sir?” Me: “The Kneading Conference” Border Guard: “The what conference?” Me: “The Kneading Conference, I’m a baker.” Border Guard “Sir, please step out of the vehicle.”

After a short rummage through my delivery Vanagon the US Border Patrol was convinced that yes, they really do have conferences for bakers. The white powder strewn all over the carpets wasn’t really that suspicious after all.

Also note, that this baker’s conference rocked.

Pictures Below depict some awesome scenes from this last September’s Kneading Conference West held just outside Mt. Vernon, WA.

Just some baker’s talkin’ bout bread.

The man himself, Jeffery Hamelman. His book, Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes taught a generation of bakers about great bread.

Piper Davis giving a workshop on fruit pies in a sweet little mobile brick oven from Portland built by Mark Doxtader of Tastebud.

Roger Jansen teaching dressing mill stones with an air hammer.

I brought this wicked mill home. Built by Roger Jansen of Jansen Mills it’s been a pretty killer purchase, churning through bushels of local grain to make great bread.

Le Madre, the leaven of Italian holiday breads, bound...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:45:14 -0500

Le Madre, the leaven of Italian holiday breads, bound traditionally in linen canvas. This natural yeast dough will ferment until the package becomes so stiff it can be bounced off the work surface. The ripe leaven will then seed the extended process of my first ever batch of panetonne, the famous italian christmas bread.

Article from the Victoria Daily Times, Friday, Dec....

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:35:00 -0400

Article from the Victoria Daily Times, Friday, Dec. 13 1963, about the uncovering the brick oven at the old Fry’s Bakery location on Craigflower Rd. where my ancestors ran their bakery for 20 years.

Here’s the article retyped so it’s easier to read:

A memory of the days when bread smelled like bread and cost a nickel bobbed up this week out of a broken building.

Wreckers tearing down a confectionary on Craigflower Road found in the ruins a brick oven that was once manned by a family of bakers.

Fry’s Bakery has been out of business for years, but the name is still familiar to many Victorians. Charles Fry founded the bakery and built the brick oven about 40 years ago.

He ran the bakery with his three sons for 20 years, going out of business just after the Second World War. The oven was partitioned off after the building became a confectionary.

It stood idle, it’s iron doors hanging slack, until the wrecker smashed the screen around it.

The oven will soon be gone too, with it’s smokey bricks converted to other purposes.

And the memory of old fashioned bread will be gone from a corner of Craigflower Road forever.

Photo

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:26:01 -0400

Ottilie’s photo from the lamb roast at this years...

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:32:49 -0400

Ottilie’s photo from the lamb roast at this years Metchosin Days. I believe these lamb were busy grazing next to where the wheat for my bread was grown!

notherwayoftelling:

Metchosin Days’ Lamb Roast

Getting some freshly-picked veggies from Wind Whipped Farm for...

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:38:04 -0400

Getting some freshly-picked veggies from Wind Whipped Farm for our Focaccia!

anotherwayoftelling: Byron the baker with his mammoth loaf of...

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:37:42 -0400

anotherwayoftelling:

Byron the baker with his mammoth loaf of bread

"A loaf of bread made by a local baker is not only sustenance for the body, it is also fuel for the..."

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:34:07 -0400

“A loaf of bread made by a local baker is not only sustenance for the body, it is also fuel for the spirit.”

- Joe Ortiz, The Village Baker

The iconic image of an iconic bread, by an iconic photographer....

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:07:00 -0400

The iconic image of an iconic bread, by an iconic photographer. I’ve been musing on baguettes after introducing them to our market customers over the past couple weekends and I’ve put some thoughts below:

The baguette sits counter to most of my ideas on bread. I bake large, heavy loaves with dark flours—breads packed with nutrition, but also speaking to the traditional breads of the country side. The bread of farmers, peasants and labourers.

Baguettes were born in the basement brick ovens of Paris, and in it’s pure and original form it is a beautiful symbol of the ideal city. As such it has become a cornerstone in the diet, not only of parisians, but of people across the world. Interestingly the peasants of France were originally suspicious of the long skinny bread that their city counterparts cherished. The contrast between the earthy traditional peasant loaves and the airy baguette make it seem otherworldly and in comparison, quite odd.

It was truly a city bread, historically and for me personally. I learned to bake them at the Italian Bakery in Victoria, rushing around early in the morning, rolling countless baguettes to for our daily customers and wholesale orders. They say it takes 3000 baguettes until you learn the proper shaping method, and I did well over in my time at that bakery. In Vancouver I brought the baguette with me when I worked for Florin Moldovan at Beyond Bread, the former Transylvanian Peasant. Vancouverites, in a city a nearly devoid of good bread, and definitely devoid of a good baguette, responded fanatically.

When I returned the the island and built up the bakery on my parents farm, it didn’t seem right to bake baguettes. I am using whole grains sourced within a couple kilometers and stone milling them for a bread that is in a way, about trying to remember the way life was before the industrialization of bread.

However, the beauty of the baguette is incredibly alluring— the deep diamond/teardrop like cuts, and the thick, cracked crust that sings when pulled from the oven make it a bread that is fascinating to make. The time and energy that goes into making a great baguette go beyond what a sensible baker would attempt. That is why there are so many mediocre baguettes out there, because to make a really great baguette takes so much time and energy that the baker needs to be caught up in a nearly destructive search for perfection. For better or worse, I think I may have caught the fever behind making a perfect baguette, and for me, it will be one that marries the country side with the demands of the urban.

Here is the Caraway Rye, featuring locally grown Rye from Tom...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:32:21 -0400

Here is the Caraway Rye, featuring locally grown Rye from Tom Henry at Stillmeadow Farm.

The Hazelnut Apple Rye featuring apples from Wind Whipped...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:59:08 -0400

The Hazelnut Apple Rye featuring apples from Wind Whipped Farm in Metchosin and roasted hazelnuts from Wilberry Orchards in Cowichan Bay is out of the oven!

Oak Bay Night Market- Local Bread+Pastry

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:18:00 -0400

Oak Bay Night Market is tomorrow night! Hosted by the Oak Bay BIA and held on Oak Bay Avenue, this market is quickly becoming the best in Victoria. We will be there from 4-8pm with lots of local bread and pastry. But be there early as we sold out in 45 minutes last month.

Above photographs from left to right are CowValley hazelnuts from Wilberry Orchards, Alex Fletcher of Wind Whipped Farm holding a massive tomato for tomorrows foccacia, and a block of butter for the epic amount of croissants I’m hand-rolling for the market.

I’m going to be attempting to live-blog the baking tomorrow, photographing breads as they come out of the oven so check back in tomorrow.

Breads tomorrows are as follows:

Wind Whipped Farm Apple Hazelnut Rye

Walnut Red Wheat Bread

Red Wheat Country Bread

Caraway Rye Country Bread

Wind Whipped Tomato Foccaccia

Happy Valley Rosemary Foccaccia

Classic Baguettes

Pastries are as follows:

Wilberry Hazelnut Croissants

Butter Croissants

Pain au chocolat

Wind Whipped Red Currant Scones

Cherry Chocolate Scones