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Weekend Bakery

The place for the ambitious home baker

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Weekend Bakery

Weekend Bakery wants to offer and share information, tips, techniques, recipes and tools for the ‘professional’ home baker, with an above average 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 or which favorite loaves to bake.

Weekend Bakery is serious about artisan bread making. We have our own ‘at home micro bakery’. Making bread in small quantities with time and attention will deliver great and rewarding results. So why not try and make your own too? 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. 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 18 years. We love sharing our homemade bread and recipes with friends and family and everybody who’s truly interested. 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 with just flour, water and salt and a bit of homemade sourdough.

Our Bakery Tool Shop

We are proud to offer a range of bread baking tools that are perfect for the home baker and small bakeries. All bread baking tools are made within the European Union and of the highest quality. And there’s some very original sweet baking stuff too. Plus we ship all over the world. Come and take a look and get inspired to bake!

Things we love to bake and make

There are some items that we have really ‘made our own’ over the years. Next to our “Pain Rustique’ and Pain au Levain’ that has an ever growing enthusiastic following, we have perfected the art of croissant making and baguette baking. We also make traditional Dutch specialties like suikerbrood (sugar loaf) speculaas, cinnamon buns and roggebrood (rye bread). We love making our own pizza and flatbreads. We also make our own marmalade from the Sevilla oranges when in season and like to experiment with chocolate and caramel too and love to roast our own coffee beans.

Besides the baking

We love to travel. Our favorite destinations are Italy, France, Norway and Canada. Favorite cities: New York, Venice, Amsterdam.
Also fond of (outdoor) cooking, the Italian kitchen, Indian and Japanese food and much more…

Happy baking from Weekend Bakery!

Ed & Marieke
Netherlands

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  1. Hallo Ed en Marieke,

    Ik zou graag willen weten of jullie Tritordeum meel kennen en daar ervaringen mee hebben.

    Vriendelijke groet
    Saskia Altena.

    Reply

  2. I hope y’all are well. You are aware that I made 2 batches of starter using your instructions but I had to put them in the fridge because I had to help take care of my sister who had a stroke. I made a 3rd batch using organic whole wheat and pineapple juice. It bubbled a bit but wouldn’t double. So I went to your instructions and removed 2/3rd and fed with organic dark rye flour. I named her Juju (nickname for my 14 year old granddaughter.) I’m trying to teach her how to work with starters, flour and doughs. I tell her she needs to know her math. So she got an education how I determined how much to discard and to feed. So at 7:35 pm we fed Juju. Girlfriend, at 8:43 am today she had more than doubled so I stirred her. At 12:45 pm I checked her again and she had doubled again. I stirred her and placed her back in the cupboard.
    I can’t bake until this weekend so I’m going to put her in the fridge.
    If I leave her out for 2 days like your instructions say does she just sit and I do nothing? Then after the 2 days do I discard and feed? Do I put her in the fridge? Is she ready for baking? I have so many questions. Thank you so much for your time. BTW, people love my bread when I use your recipes.

    Reply

    • Hi Jeanette,
      Very sorry to hear about your sister. Hope she is recovering well.
      Congratulation, another addition to the culture family. We must admit we have never made a culture with any fruit or fruit juice. She is very active indeed!
      It is not quite clear to us how old or young Juju is at the moment, but it is best to keep refreshing it for about 7 days. Just put it in the fridge after you have established that it is active and, baking or not, get it out at a convenient time for you and start using it for baking. Because it is still a young culture we would then advice to get it out one day before you want to use it for your baking and refresh it and then use it in your recipe the next day. Because it is so very active you can stick to all the shortest times we mention in our instructions or keep them even shorter. It is not the time but the activity that is key!

      Hope all will go well and better with your sister from here on out.
      Wishing you tranquil baking moments and lovely loaves,

      Marieke

      Reply

  3. Just a quick note to let you know how much I appreciate the site… great recipes and explanations, and today my first order from the webshop arrived to much joy! Hartelijk dank voor dit warme plekje op het internet.

    Reply

    • Thank you Olivier for your very kind comment and the appreciation of what we are trying to do and keep this way as a ‘safe haven’ of real people with real and good information without distractions like advertising.

      Heel veel plezier met bakken, vooral in deze gezellige periode!
      Ed & Marieke
      Weekend Bakers

      Reply

    • We understand Antonio,
      The best indication we can give you is to use a quarter measuring teaspoon (so 1/4) and fill this halfway.

      Reply

  5. I have a friend visiting from Melbourne, Australia. I would like her to buy me a speculaas mould with a Christmas theme.

    What would you have in stock?

    Thanks
    Jes

    Reply

    • Thank you Jes for your inquiry. We do have all kinds of speculaas cookie molds which you can see here:
      www.weekendbakery.com/websh…tter-molds
      Because they are typically Dutch / from Holland, most are also bearing this theme, which means wind mills and wooden shoes and traditional dress. In Holland the speculaas and these images are very much associated with the feast of Sinterklaas, which is celebrated over here the 5th of December. Our Sinterklaas is the ‘original’ Santa Claus and (in short), was taken by immigrants to the US and so on to become the Father Christmas that people all over the world now know.
      Let us know if we can help you with anything!

      Marieke
      Weekend Bakery

      Reply

  6. Good day to y’all. Hopefully a simple question. Which if your bread recipes could I make and add , maybe, sun dried tomatoes, black olives, Parmesan or Asiago cheese, etc. want to make a savory version.
    Could I use the No knead Muesli Spelt recipe or should I use a full bread flour recipe?
    Sorry, second question. I’m considering making your Rye Lovers Dark Rye Bread. My godson is a diabetic and says he can eat rye bread in moderation better than white, so, I’ll make this for him. I know that the 1st ingredient in USA terms is rye chops and 2nd ingredient is rye meal but is the 3rd ingredient what we call dark rye flour or medium or white rye? So many terms for me to wrap my little brain around.
    You guys are Fabulous!! Thanks 😃

    Reply

    • Sorry for the late reply Jeanette, just a lot on our plate this week.
      We always happy to answer your questions. It is no problem to add these ingredients to most bread recipes, no knead or not. But if you want to make something delicious with cheese and vegs and savory items then we can recommend using this one a s a base:
      www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ie-danish/
      The third ingredient would be white rye flour! Follow the recipe carefully, especially the part where you have to wrap the bread with foil so no moisture can escape and the not opening before the bread is completely cooled!
      Hope it will be great for you and your godson.

      Greetings / Groetjes uit Holland

      Reply

  7. Love your website!!!
    I have my way of freezing bread by wrapping it in parchment paper then place it in a heavy plastic bag. I Try to remove any air from the inside of the bag then seal with a twist tie.
    How do you freeze your bread?
    Thanks
    Jeanette

    Reply

    • Thank you very much Jeanette,
      Great to read about your way of storing bread. We used to use plastic bags (no paper). First we cut the bread into tick slices, reassemble it so it makes a whole loaf again, put it in a bag get the air out an use a twist tie. But we are conscious of the use of plastic bags and are trying to find other ways to store the bread. The rolls we store in a container in the freezer which goes very well. We are trying to do the same now with loaves, but it takes up more space of course than the bags. So our method is developing at the moment and we would love to hear about how other bakers are dealing with this too!

      Enjoy your baking and thanks again!
      Marieke & Ed

      Reply

  9. Hi,
    I am a baker with about 12 years experience. I DO a lot of breads especially
    Tartine type sourdough.
    Thanks for the laminate dough recipe.
    Rich

    Reply

    • Thanks for dropping us a line Richard.
      Enjoy your croissant and pastry baking, hope it will be great!

      Reply

  10. Hi can iadk plez which butter u use for lamination croissant itried room butter but it was smelted not good . Icant find special butter for lamination

    Reply

    • You can use any butter you like to laminate croissants. Still keep the butter very cold for the best results. Dutch bakers uses special croissant butter for the lamination, but any butter wil do.

      Reply

      • Yes Shereen, we use normal dairy butter (we use organic, which has a good taste and firmness and works great for us) with a fat content of 82%. So no special butter for us which you would not be able to buy in a normal supermarket.
        Good luck with it.

        Weekend Bakers

        Reply

  11. Hi Ed and Marieke,

    I’m your follower from Malaysia and I’ve learnt a lot of tips from your website. Truly appreciate all your sharing and recipes. Just wondering if you’re conducting any masterclasses or workshop that I can join? Would definitely love to learn from you in person.

    Best regards,
    Cheryl

    Reply

    • Thank you so much Cheryl,
      We are not offering any workshops ourselves but if you were to visit Holland we can definitely help you with some good addresses for workshops and great bakeries to visit.

      Greetings from our tiny kingdom to your exotic country with wonderful cuisine

      PS: You can find adresses, also the one Rudolf suggest below on our workshops page:
      www.weekendbakery.com/posts…en-volgen/
      It’s in Dutch, so tell us if you need any help from us!

      Reply

    • For a good workshop and possibilities try bakeryinstitute in Zaandam. They are for profesionals and homebakers.

      Reply

  12. Hello ED and Marieke
    I hope you are well. i am a keen follower of your bakery and have learnt from you too.
    i am coming to Amsterdam on 2/6 and then on to Den Haag on the 24/6
    I am looking for things to do and would really love to visit your bakery and come and introduce myself and visit your shop Would this be something you would like to do and will you be able to fit in a visit if you not busy .
    Let me know your thoughts and if you cannot i will understand
    have a nice day
    bye
    Albert Smith

    Reply

    • Hello Albert,
      Great to get your message. We will drop you a line via the mail to talk about it further!

      Greetings,
      Marieke

      Reply

  13. Hi Ed & Marieke – Any thoughts about adding diastatic malt to your rye starter on day 3 when many people have a stalled starter? I am thinking the enzymes might help the yeast get more sugars and jumpstart the starter.

    Reply

    • Hello Jim,
      Thank you very much for your suggestion and tip. Rye already has a high amylase enzyme content so we would not know if this extra enzyme addition would make a difference (not from our own experience). But we also think it will not hurt to give it a try when faced with a stalling starter.

      Enjoy your sourdough baking!

      Reply

  14. Good morning Ed & Marieke

    Trust this mail finds you in good spirit?

    Can you tell me which brand of bread oven are you currently using. I would like to consider importing an oven for myself. I live in South Africa

    Thanking you in anticipation

    Reply

  15. Good Evening: I had been a home baker for many years and just came across your website today!!! What a wonderful site! I really enjoy it. I look first in your simple (white bread ) and was amazed with the look. Your explanation is clear and easy to follow, love it.
    I am originally from Thailand but now live in America. I start selling my homemade breads and even though I do sourdough breads, your simple white loaf intrigued me. I will try to make it and perhaps try to sell it too. I just bought a used Hobart 20 quartz mixer and now hope that I can make more breads for sale. I will look for advice from your site and thank you very much.
    Mantana

    Reply

    • Thank you so much for your kind comment. What a great adventure you are on! We hope we can be part of your baking journey with our tips and recipes. Let us know how it goes with the sandwich loaf. And best of luck with the bread sales.

      Greatings from Holland,
      Ed & Marieke

      Reply

  16. Hallo, ik heb al een aantal keer jullie croissant recept gemaakt.

    Ze smaken goed maar ze worden altijd vrij plat.

    Hoe kan dit voorkomen worden?

    Reply

    • Hallo Jeffrey,
      Misschien kun je eens een andere bloem proberen. De bloem die je gebruikt kan bv het deeg wat verzwaren door aanwezige vezels, resulterend in een plattere croissant. Wellicht kun je ook nog eens kijken naar het rijzen, misschien kunnen je croissants toch nog iets langer de tijd krijgen voor het bakken.

      Reply

      • Ik was zelf al aant kijken voor een kortere rijs ivm de gist en alcohol geur als de croissants uit de oven komen

        Reply

          • Ik denk dit weekend even een aantal sampels maken met verschillende hoeveelheden gist. Kijken hoe dit resulteert

            Reply

    • Hallo Jeffrey,
      Wat ook helpt is de deeg niet te dun uitrollen. Plm 1 a 1,5 cm is vaak voldoende.

      Reply

  17. Beste weekend bakery, met plezier bak ik regelmatig broden van jullie site. Ik heb inmiddels een jaar oud moeder desem in de koelkast waar ik goed voor zorg. Met dat desem bak ik de broden.

    Ik heb alleen een vraag over de werkwijze. Wanneer ik in de avond een poolish maak om de volgende ochtend een brood te bakken, gebruik ik dan het desem zo koud uit de koelkast, of moet ik dat desem in de ochtend uit de koelkast halen, voeden en dan in de avond de poolish van maken?

    Reply

    • Dank voor je comment Marcel!
      Wij adviseren om je desem in de koelkast te bewaren (dat doe je al natuurlijk). Als je het desem gebruikt zoals wij dat in onze recepten doen, dan kun je de kleine hoeveelheid desem direct uit de koelkast in je voordeeg / poolish doen en een nacht laten ontwikkelen.
      Als je desem langer dan een week in de koelkast heeft gestaan, dan zouden we het van tevoren even verversen en weer actief laten worden, voor het in een voordeeg te gebruiken. Dus hou die periode van langer of korter dan een week aan om te beslissen of je van tevoren eerst wel of niet ververst (wij verversen meestal een dag van tevoren).

      Afhankelijk van hoeveel desem je uit je potje hebt gehaald om te gebruiken, moet je het daarna ook weer aanvullen natuurlijk. Na het aanvullen moet je het desem eerst weer een dagje laten staan en actief laten worden voordat je het terug in de koelkast plaatst, in afwachting van je volgende bakronde.

      Hopelijk heb je er wat aan. Fijn bakweekend!

      Reply

  18. Hello from Devon, Ed & Marieke,
    FYI I have just shared your lovely website with a bread-making friend of mine.
    I am currently struggling with “cowpat” sourdough loaves, and found your site via a Google search on the subject. I will doubtless be back here very soon.
    Thank you so much for sharing.
    Cheers,
    Andy

    Reply

  20. Good Morning

    I am making 80% hydration baguette. After the initial 2 minutes stretching and folding, mine dough still looked shaggy and sticky. I stopped at the 2 minutes. Should i have kept going until it looked more like dough?

    Also can you at some point freeze these baguettes? I wondered if it could be partially cooked and then frozen.

    Thanks so much for you help, I love your website.

    Reply

  21. Hi, what is the measurement for the vanilla in the madeleine recipe ? Is whole wheat pastry flour ok to use? It’s all my store has.
    Thanks!

    Reply

    • Hello J,
      You can start by using 1 teaspoon of vanilla and see how you like that. We have not heard of whole wheat pastry flour. The point of pastry flour is to get a light, airy and / or crumbly texture for your cakes and cookies and that is why pastry flour is often the ‘opposite’ of whole wheat.
      We have never made a whole wheat cake or madeleines with whole wheat, but if you cannot get anything else, you could still try the recipe of course.

      Good luck with it!

      Reply

  22. Dear Ed and Marieke,
    I just discovered your website today and am excited to use all the instructions for croissants asap. Everything on your site is making me a better baker. I bake for my family often and expect they are going to wonder where I have learned so many new things.
    Warmest regards,
    Lincoln
    NY USA

    Reply

    • Hello Lincoln,
      Thank you so much for your kind words. So glad we can be part of your baking and learning with the tips and recipes we provide.
      Baking for family is so rewarding, especially when they are so happy eating your bakes and encourage you to bake more 🙂

      Let us know how it goes with the croissants!

      Warm regards / Hartelijke groeten uit Holland,

      Ed & Marieke

      Reply

  23. Hi Ed and Marieke

    I have found your classic french croissant instructions very helpful. After a number of attempts I now have the correct laminations and croissants that are much nicer than anything we can buy. The key differences I found compared with other recipes were the use of plain flour (not strong), room temperature and minimal handling at the shaping stage.

    I have found that for reheating from frozen in our domestic oven they take about 20mins from a cold oven or 15 minutes from hot. Rather more than the 8mins in your instructions.

    This is a brilliant website that is more comprehensive than any other resource I have come across.

    Reply

    • Thank you so much Simon, for sending us your feedback and taking the time to shower us with kind words.
      Very glad you had success with the recipe.

      Enjoy your pastry baking!

      Marieke & Ed

      Reply

  24. Hello.
    Thank you for offering many insights to baking quality breads.
    Can you name a vendor of stone ground, organic flours, that will ship to the United States?
    Many thanks,
    David
    Chicago

    Reply

    • Hello David,
      We recently got this same question and asked around and we have not found any that we know about that would ship outside of Europe.
      Of course we do not know everything and we hope you will still be able to find what you are looking for!

      Reply

  25. Hi Ed & Marieke..
    I wood like to congratulate you both on a marvelous web site.
    I’m a culinary educator at Bilgi university in Istanbul Turkey…Part of a chefs Life is research made so much easier due to Google, back in my day at Westminster collage we only had books and other chefs to learn and get inspiration from. I would l like to ask your permission. If I could use some information for lectures..
    Best regards and thank you.

    Reply

    • Thank you David, for your kind words. We appreciate you reaching out to us this way. Is there any particular information / recipe you would like to use?

      Greetings from Holland,
      Ed & Marieke

      Reply

  26. Hello,
    Happy holidays
    My 16 year old grandson followed your detailed 3 day croissant recipe and the results were very very good. If you have a moment perhaps you could help with two questions.
    1. When doing the final 110cm roll the dough got soft and W’s sticking to work area. Should we have envelope folded dough and refrigerated at that point.
    2. It was challenging keeping the width to the desired size. Any suggestions.

    Thank you very much for taking the time to provide such detailed instructions.

    Tom “papa” gillett
    Chef’s assistant

    Owen Heaton
    Chef

    Reply

    • Hello Tom & Owen,
      What a great comment to read. Glad you enjoyed your baking together and the results were already excellent. We love to help you getting an even better result next time.
      1. We advice the following: Keep very lightly flouring the surface, turning the dough from time to time, lifting the dough, to avoid sticking. When you also notice the dough starts to resist, immediately fold and take it to the fridge for around 20 minutes, then continue.
      2.This is both a matter of practice and applying even pressure. To help with this it is a good idea to both flip and turn the dough regularly. People have the tendency to press harder when rolling away than towards, so rotate the dough to get that even pressure.

      Thank you also for your kind words and we wish you lots of happy baking moments together, also in the new year(s) to come!

      Ed & Marieke
      Weekend Bakery
      Holland

      PS: Lots of baking fun to be had with the croissant pastry with these recipes too:
      www.weekendbakery.com/posts…x-raisins/
      &
      www.weekendbakery.com/posts…-genieten/

      Reply

  27. I’ve been using your rye based starter for about 2 yrs now. I primarily make various versions of Chad Robertson Tartine bread, often sharing with friends and family. Anyway, your starter approach has been so perfect for me. I will never go back to the wheat flour starter. Thank you so much for sharing all your great work. On down days your site cheers me up even if I can’t bake myself at that moment. Warm regards and happy holidays!

    Reply

    • Hello Bill,
      Your kind words really warm our hearts on this cold December day.
      Wishing you a lovely festive season with lots of baking and sharing with family and friends!

      Greetings from the Low Countries,
      Ed & Marieke

      Reply

  28. Hello
    Google flags your website as not secure
    which means all email addresses can be collected by hackers
    with the potential of email accounts hijacked

    I have deleted my bookmarks to your site and will risk an email address to send this note

    Please take action
    Your website was interesting

    Regards

    Reply

    • Hello Mike,
      Sorry for the late reply and thank you for bringen this up. We can tell you that all the pages of both our website and WKB web shop are now HTTPS-based and Fully Secure!
      Hope you will be back of course…

      Greetings,
      Ed & Marieke
      Weekend Bakery

      Reply

  29. Bonjour,
    Merci pour votre site, mon problème est que je ne suis pas très fort en anglais, but i hope some can help me.

    Chaque que je fais mes croissants je me retrouve avec beaucoup de rognures et même si j’en met un peu dans la recette suivante j’ai toujours plus de rognure.
    Ma question/
    y a t il une recette bon marché ou je peux utiliser toutes les rognures pour faire un autre produit?

    Merci

    Reply

  30. Hello!! I’ve been in Germany and loved the bread they have. Do you have any german bread recipe?
    Thanks

    Reply

    • Hello Veronica,
      We know some things about German baking and love a lot of their classics, but being Dutch, we are no experts on German baking. There are several really good baking blogs but in German. We are sure if you google ‘Best German baking blogs’ you will find a wealth of recipes to choose from.
      Maybe this book is a good place to start too: www.bakefromscratch.com/class…isa-weiss/

      Reply

    • Hello Veronica,
      We know some things about German baking and love a lot of their classics, but being Dutch, we are no experts on German baking.
      We do have this one for Kaiser Brotchen (but there are many ways and versions for excellent ‘Deutsche Brötchen’ to try):
      www.weekendbakery.com/posts…ser-rolls/
      There are also several really good baking blogs but mostly in German. We are sure if you google ‘Best German baking blogs’ you will find a wealth of recipes to choose from.
      Maybe this book is a good place to start too: www.bakefromscratch.com/class…isa-weiss/

      Reply

  31. Hallo!
    Wat ben ik blij dat ik jullie site gevonden heb. Ik probeer sinds een aantal weken mijn eigen desem starter te maken en daarna een desembrood. De starter is inmiddels prima gelukt, maar het brood vergt nog wat oefening. Ik probeer het nu via jullie poolish en dan de pain naturel. Maar wat mij iedere keer opvalt is dat mijn deeg heel stijf is en niet zoals bv te zien is op jullie strech and folt video een beetje slapper. Wat doe ik niet goed? De poolish was vanmorgen om 9 uur dunner dan gisteravond, maar ik zag geen bubbeltjes of dat het iets gestegen was. Maar ik ben toch verder gegaan. Ik zit nu tussen de eerste en tweede folt sessie in, maar ik wilde het toch even vragen. Omdat het tot nu toe bij iedere poging zo is met het deeg, dat het dus stijf en een bol blijft.
    Alvast hartelijk dank voor jullie reactie en input of tips.

    Reply

    • Hello Anke,
      Even voor osn om te weten: Hoe kneed je het deeg (mixer/ hand?) en welk meel / bloem gebruik je?

      Marieke

      Reply

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