The little (micro) bakery that could.
Batch made, hand rolled and hand kneaded bread which makes use of the full natural fermentation process of sourdough. Bread + Milk is a bakery that uses the sourdough process to create not only sourdough loaves but a whole spectrum of sweet and savoury bakes, from classic Italian recipes such as focaccias and ciabatta to new York style bagels, and Jewish babkas.
About Lara
Lara studied to be a chef in Stellenbosch 18 years ago. She trained in classical French technique. Part of training was spent in the bakery learning all about yeasted doughs, confectionary and chocolate but only briefly on sourdough.
She always enjoyed baking with yeast but found she had little passion for baking in general.
“I found it quite tedious and monotonous to spend all that time and effort to end up with one cookie that looked like a handbag.”
She mastered the basics of cake making and icing, but preferred to keep it simple and save the big creations for weddings and birthdays.
Sourdough featured briefly in her life, about a year before lockdown, but she quickly lost interest as her results were hardly newsworthy. Her interest was re-awakended after watching “the chef show” on Netflix with Jon Favreau and Roy Choi.
“In Season 1, volume 3 Jon Favreau makes a sourdough loaf in a cast iron pot, and it just looked so magnificently crisp and easy, so I went out and bought a cast iron pot with intent to start trying sourdough again.”
At this point she was also seeing a life coach who was helping her unpack her career choices and making the next move regarding starting a new job.
“I was also in the process of creating a line of cupcakes for an interview for a position in product development at a large bakery, so the creative juices were being stirred up and moving towards a focused position of ‘ what am I going to do with my life’. “,
” Sourdough just seemed to keep on popping up, even during my bakery interview it was mentioned that they were struggling with their line of sourdoughs, I had always had success with this recipe for a starter, and even though I didn’t get the job in the end I shared this recipe with them.
That also sparked an interest in me as I was browsing through sourdough websites and thought I would maybe give things another go.
I was starting to get successful results with sourdough and had always had a fantastic bagel recipe, which I adjusted to become a hybrid sourdough bagel and was selling sourdough bread and bagels to friends and family. ”
Then Covid-19 happened and a severe lockdown where we were not allowed to leave our homes except for emergencies and food. At this point yeast and flour were flying off the shelves so we had to make a plan to start looking for bigger suppliers.
Fast forward two years and we are now finished the process of setting up a bigger space for the bakery with an industrial oven and fridge in order to cope with the demand of orders.
” Looking back I just do not know how we navigated through such extremely difficult circumstances that we have all suffered at the hands of Covid-19, but what I do know is that without the support of friends and family and customers from the early beginning stages of baking we would never had made it this far. “
I never imagined that I would have such a passion for baking or that I would ever wake up at 2am with a smile on my face, but it’s there, and I don’t foresee it ever leaving me, now that I have found what I am going to do with the rest of my life.
Keep calm and Bake on x
Lara Johnson