Britain's Best Bakery

Of all the different types of business I visit for this blog, I probably enjoy bakeries the best.  As a child I loved the smell of a proper village bakery, and the thrill of carrying a warm loaf home. Best of all, you could usually find a bits you could break off and eat before you even got home!

Today most people are content with bread which is mass produced in a factory, and may have all manner of additives. 

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/yisris

Some supermarkets pretend to make their own, and operate "tanning salons" for bread which was made elsewhere. I personally would rather make sacrifices elsewhere, and pay a little bit more for real bread. 

Many people enjoyed watching The Great British Bake Off, bit I prefer ITV's Britain's Best Bakery - which concentrates on real commercial bakeries.  It shows how passionate and skillful bakers are, and featured their local specialities. 

In the first series, in the episode for my region the three contestants were London Road Bakery (in Stoke):

The Loaf (in Crich):

and Hambleton Bakery.  

The first two have already been mentioned in this blog, and are both absolutely amazing bakers, so I was quietly having bets with myself as to which one would knock out Hambleton Bakery (which I hadn't heard off before).  I was amazed when Hambleton Bakery won that round, but as they progressed through the competition I could see why. Hambleton Bakery kept beating some serious competition and were eventually declared Britain's best bakery. 

Quite a few of my friends, who are bakers, have been over to see them, and they've all been impressed with what they do. In my next post, I'll describe my visit to Hambleton Bakery:

- it's an exceptionally good bakery. 

If you want to improve your daily bread, try using Sustain's Real Bread Finder. Series 2 of Britain's Best Bakery starts (on ITV) on Monday, 6th January 2014.

Web: www.itv.com/presscentre/ep1week2/britains-best-bakery

P.S. One of the best Christmas presents I had this year was a copy of Robert Swift's Born & Bread:

Robert wants to help you bake better bread, and shares his experience and recipes. I never realised that doughs go through an adolescence stage - the stage where things can unravel (if you're not careful)!  

Every time we're near Swift's Bakery, on Clee Hill, we fill up our freezer with his lovely GI Bread.  It keeps remarkably well (but that's only if it doesn't get eaten first). Actually I'd rather eat some Swift's bread that's 4 days old, than a "fresh" supermarket loaf, - and it keeps in a freezer beautifully.