What’s Weekend Bakery?
Weekend Bakery wants to offer and share information, tips, techniques, recipes and tools for the ‘professional’ home baker, with a warm interest in the art of artisan bread making. Weekend Bakery points to the fact that a lot of people, like us, concentrate their baking activities around the weekends and holidays. The moments you look forward to, thinking about what recipes to try out or which favorite loafs to bake.
Weekend Bakery is serious about artisan bread making. We have our own ‘at home micro bakery’. After extensive research we found that the way to great bread leads straight to our home. Making bread in small quantities with time and attention will deliver great and rewarding results. We know that there are excellent artisan bakers to be found in some places. But not everybody has one close by or can afford to buy their bread. So why not try and make your own? It’s a hobby with great benefits for your mind as well as your body. Making good bread appeals to all your senses. Working with dough can be your own form of meditation. Your body can seriously benefit from the bread you make.
So there are lot’s of good reasons to make your own. Maybe you’ve already discovered them. We would love to hear about your bread making and share information.
So if you are serious about good bread making, Weekend Bakery is the place for you. Get your hands stuck in a piece of dough and smell the aroma of your own sourdough starter.
Our Artisan At Home Bakery
We are passionate home bakers. We have been sharing our quest for good food and especially good bread for over 15 years. We love sharing our home made bread and baking recipes with friends and family and everybody who’s interested in what we are doing. We are especially enthusiastic about the ‘artisan’ way of baking. Traditional methods, few ingredients, lots of taste. It’s amazing and rewarding to discover you can make a wonderful bread out of flour, water and salt and a bit of home made sourdough.
Taking Home Baking one step further
Good bread needs good material. After baking lot’s of bread in your run of the mill oven and with the aid of your free standing mixer the ambitious home baker begins to feel the limitations. We did, and so we looked further and discovered that there is such a thing as ‘semi professional’ equipment for home and small professional bakers. That’s how we came to be the proud owners of a Rofco baking oven with stone floors and a Haussler Alpha mixer with a serious spiral hook that’s not afraid of a few kilo’s of dough.
Things we love to bake and make
There are some items that we have really ‘made our own’ over the years. Next to the “Pain Rustique’ and Pain au Levain’ that has an ever growing enthusiastic following, we have a few other favorites. We make traditional Dutch specialties like suikerbrood (sugar loaf) speculaas, cinnamon buns and Roggebrood (rye bread). We love making our own pizza and flatbreads and more recently also baguettes. We also make our own marmalade from the Sevilla oranges when in season and do not shy away from all things chocolate and caramel.
And also…home roasting
We are among the small group of people who like to roast their own coffee. Coffee is also a subject we are passionate about and we love to talk about it while drinking a good single estate espresso or cappuccino. Coffee is as interesting as wine, so lot’s to discover and never a boring coffee.
Besides the baking
We love to travel. Our favorite destinations are France, Italy, Norway and Canada. Favorite cities: New York, Venice, Amsterdam.
Also fond of cooking of course, Italian kitchen standing out, also love Indian and Japanese food.
Proud owners of over 150 cookbooks.
Today & The future
More good bread and coffee to share. Bakery visits, workshops, wood fired oven, herb garden, high tea parties, wine tasting, walks in the woods with a puppy, chickens.
Thanks for stopping by at Weekend Bakery!
Ed & Marieke
Holland
Hi Ed and Marieke
We’re coming for a quick visit to the Netherlands during the next two weeks. We’re very enthusiastic (if amateur) artisan bakers from South Africa. We know it’s late notice, but perhaps you have time to chat to us a little, and perhaps we can even watch you bake some? We would really appreciate that, if you have time.
We were thinking perhaps somewhere in the week starting 12 July? We can adapt ourselves to your schedule.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Kind regards,
Joey Kok
I enjoy reading through your site, it is very interesting. I like making my own Pizza as well. I am very interested in roasting my own coffee, how did you start?
Thank You,
Larry
Hello Larry,
After working for a coffee roasting company in Holland, I discovered that roasting coffee beans can be an art, but that freshness is key. We found that it is hard to find, specialty shops that sell coffee disappointing us, so the only option for us to get fresh good quality coffee was directly from the roaster or going the home roasting way. The last option exited us most, because we like getting to the source and trying to make as much as possible from scratch (like with our bread and pizza etc). First I have to say that the coffee of the roaster I worked for (The Golden Coffee Box/Boot Koffie in Baarn)is in a class of it’s own and it’s the standard of what can be achieved if you truly have the best beans and know exactly how far to roast each bean. But like I said, freshness is an important part and so the main reason for buying a home roaster for us is always having the freshest coffee in the house. I would suggest buying a book about home roasting to take in the fundamentals of roasting (see amazon for this). Find a good source for buying your good quality!green beans. You can also find lots of information by checking out sites like sweetmarias.com and coffeekid.com and coffeegeek.com. When you are ready to buy a home roasting machine I would suggest you buy a good one right away and not go down the route of a popcorn popper or something like that. It’s important to buy a machine that caters to your needs e.g. how much coffee do you make/drink a day. We have two machines: the Alpenroast (a drum roaster no longer in production) and the Hearthware I-roast 2, which is a good machine to start with at about 185 euros. It produces small batches of 150 grams of coffee at a time and you can see the beans through the glass. There are other options as well, so use other people’s experiences to your advantage and read about them first. Next to this, it’s just a lot of fun roasting your own coffee, trying out all kinds of beans, finding your favorites and letting others enjoy it with you.
Good luck with it and let us know how you are getting along,
Marieke
I love the video of the bread rising. Where did you get that oven? I would like to sign up but can’t find the place to do so. Please advise.
Betsy
PS I have roasted my own beans as well.
Hi Betsy,
Thank you very much. You can learn more about our Rofco oven from our posting about it.
It’s an oven from a small company in Belgium. They aim their product at small shops like little organic stores and the ‘professional’ home baker. Their website: http://www.rofco.be
You can also find some talk about the Rofco at The Fresh Loaf:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/14912/artisan-bread-making-movie-see-timelapsed-ovenspring#comments
If you have any more questions please let us know.
I am not sure what you mean exactly by sign up. Can you explain?
Great you are roasting coffee too? Do you have a home roasting machine?
Greetings,
Marieke
Dag Ed en Marieke,
Ik zag dat jullie een La Cloche Baker hebben. Mag ik vragen waar jullie die hebben gekocht? En: wat zijn jullie ervaringen daarmee?
Met vriendelijke groet,
Suzanne
Hallo Suzanne,
Toen wij hem kochten (en naar het zich, na een rondje internet, laat aanzien nu ook nog) kon je hem alleen in Amerika bestellen. (zie: http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=159613).
De volledige benaming is de ‘Sassafras Round La Cloche Brick Oven’. Belangrijk punt om op te letten is dat je La Cloche qua afmetingen in je oven past (met name de hoogte kan een probleem zijn als je zo’n standaard inbouw-oven hebt. Hij paste wel in ons Boretti fornuis van 90 cm breed, die had genoeg hoogte vanwege de twee ‘verdiepingen’ in deze oven.
We zijn nu al een tijdje in het gelukkige bezit van een Rofco oven met stenen vloeren, maar tot die tijd hebben we erg veel plezier gehad van de La Cloche. Je kunt ook platte pita-achtige broden bakken, alleen op de stenen schaal, zonder deksel, dat gaat ook heel erg goed.
Mocht de La Cloche niet passen dan kun je ook nog overwegen alleen een stenen schaal of plaat in je oven te kopen.
Succes ermee,
Marieke
Hoi Marieke, dank voor je antwoord. Het is voor mij een luxe-probleem, want ik bak mijn brood altijd in mijn AGA, maar tijdens de zomer bak ik brood in de AGA-companion, en die is niet van gietijzer. In de gewone AGA gebruik ik altijd een steen van chamotte-klei en die gebruik ik ook in de companion, maar ik ben erg nieuwsgierig naar de bakresultaten van La Cloche. Kun je zeggen hoe hoog die Cloche is? Want AGA’s zijn wel diep maar niet heel hoog en ook niet heel erg breed van afmeting. Ik ben overigens ook erg nieuwsgierig naar de Rofco-oven. Hoe goed bevalt ie je?
Groet, Suzanne
Hoi Suzanne,
Voor de La Cloche moet je toch wel rekening houden met een ruimte van zo’n 40 cm hoogte.
De Rofco is voor ons echt de beste aanschaf tot nu toe. We hebben nu al vele honderden broden gebakken en hij stelt nooit teleur. Hij is constant en betrouwbaar, we krijgen prachtige korsten (heeft natuurlijk met meer dan alleen de oven te maken)en ook de capaciteit van 6 broden per keer is natuurlijk een vooruitgang als je wat meer wilt bakken. Het is voor ons als zeer enthousiaste micro bakkers denk ik wel het beste tussen hobby en professioneel in. Vooral qua prijs is het een interessante optie (zo’n 1200-1500 euro)en qua ruimte moet je denken aan een klein tafelmodel koelkastje.
Ik weet niet of je ons broodfilmpje al hebt gezien? Daarmee krijg je ook een goed beeld van de Rofco.
Groet,
Marieke
Dag Marieke, wederom dank voor je antwoord. Heb ook naar het filmpje gekeken: wat een mooi deeg en wat een mooi resultaat! Brood bakken is echt verslavend he? Zo’n Rofco lijkt me erg leuk, maar ik moet eerlijk zeggen dat een AGA ook een heel goed resultaat geeft. Gebruikt een Rofco krachtstroom?
Hartelijke groet, Suzanne
Dank je Suzanne,
De Rofco gebruikt geen krachtstroom maar hij moet wel op een aparte groep.
Heel veel bakplezier!
Marieke
Spotted the article in today’s “De Pers” and was stunned to learn of the undergound in NL.
Trained at Mammy’s knee in the flora of sourdough and self-cultured several captured from different parts of the globe (Dublin’s was by far the most ‘vibrant’
along with starters nicked from baking classes around Europe.
I must state here that the sources in NL for 10+ percent protein flours, where the ‘standard’ is ‘patent bloem’ which drives me (literally) to DE for materials , evades me and let us not broach the topic of rye (roggen) or spelt. Could use some pointers in this area.
Also, a very useful source for the not-so-faint-of-heart is the acerbic NNTP newsgroup: rec.food.sourdough
(can I schedule a timeslot to bake in the Weekend Bakery oven? I am a hand-kneader
Hi Max,
Thanks for dropping by! I think we can help you with the flour challenge. We have found a very good supplier for our organic flour needs (wheat, spelt and rye) in our local miller called De Zandhaas in Santpoort (North of Amsterdam). Where are you located, because maybe we could point you to another good supplier. You check organic stores and markets, also for spelt and rye, which in Holland I have never seen in any supermarket (if they sold it, it would probably not be the quality and freshness you are looking for).
Ed is familiar with the newsgroup you mentioned. If you are interested in checking out our oven and mixer, maybe we can arrange something. We will also be organizing an ‘open bakery’ for a small group of seriously interested bread people somewhere in the spring.
Happy bread baking,
Marieke & Ed
Ik woon in ZH en helaas, daarin meestal bio & eko winkelen spookt.
I cannot again find the thread on active/instant/sourdough yeasts but fresh is usually available in islamic supermarkets. the common one is Bruggeman’s.
A plug for the sourdough website that inspired me to bake anew (along with having only atrocious Irish ‘pan’ loaves on store shelves).
Samartha decodes the illogical “baker’s math” here.
Hi Max,
I’m having a little trouble with the first sentence because it sort of says that bio stores are haunted by ghosts..
We do not use a lot of (instant dry) yeast but we also use Bruggeman.
I don’t know if it’s far from where you live but there’s also a Windmill in the town of Vlaardingen that sells flour.
Molenwinkeltje ‘t Ambacht
Korte Dijk 16
3134 HB, Vlaardingen
Tel: (010)4346131
E-mail: aeolus.molenwinkel@hetnet.nl
And you can probably order anything you need via the web store http://www.de-zuidmolen.nl (in Groesbeek in east of Holland) .
Under 10 kg flour ordered will be delivered to your door at 6,75 shipping costs. They also sell T55 French and American flours and lots more.
our favorite mill http://www.molendezandhaas.nl in Santpoort NH, can only be visited as far as I know (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) but it is worth it.
Marieke
For ll in ZH, during a ‘fietstocht’ today I spotted this (unmarked!) purveyor of flours and shall ring them Wednesday next on the selection.
Hey Ed & Marieke,
Ik bots net tegen jullie site op, en zit nu dromerig te timelapsen door het oog van de Rofco. Wat een ovenspring! Geweldig. Ik hou jullie in de gaten!
Hallo Freerk,
Dank voor je gave reactie! We hebben met veel plezier je bakfoto’s zitten bekijken. Je focaccia ziet er fantastisch uit en de vele plaatjes van het open kruim waarderen we ook in hoge mate, veel mensen vergeten dat!
Happy baking,
Ed en Marieke
Just a quick note to say thank you for your fantastic site, am a very novice though enthusiastic baker, and am finding all the info on your site extremely valuable. Have a stunning baking weekend. Inge
Hi Inge,
Thanks for stopping by and your lovely compliment! All our bread recipes have been tried and tested by us at least 10 (or many more) times. We hope you will give some of them a chance and make them your own. It may take some adjusting, because your equipment, ingredients and hands will be different, but that is all part of the baking process.
Do not hesitate to ask if you have any baking questions or if you have something to add to the baking fun
Lots of loaf,
Ed and Marieke