Sometimes it all goes right. Shape, color, texture, finish, the weight in my hand: all just the way I want them. But perfect bakes are rare. More often the tops are too dark, the bottoms too light. Or the loaves curl up high and tight in the unsteamed oven and blow out their sides. Or there’s a hole through the center, so that if you cut off the ends and hold a loaf to your eye you can peer down it like a spyglass. Or the rye gaps. Or the skin of the wheat tears as it rises. There are a dozen mistakes to make, a hundred, a new mistake for every day and every bake.

Back when I was young and just beginning, the ugly loaves were a personal shame. Someone, or everyone, had convinced me that results, and not effort, were the measure of one’s worth; mistakes were to be feared and avoided. This is a stupid way to live in the world. I’m still working to unlearn it.

These days I note the imperfections in my bakes with curiosity and the occasional pinch of annoyance for a mistake I should have known better than to repeat. I discount the ugly loaves and send the lot off to be eaten. Maybe with a deck oven and a mixer, or with another decade to master my craft, every bake will be beautiful. Maybe. Probably not. The grain changes with the harvest. The weather changes with the season. The sourdough changes, or the baker. Or nothing big changes and still the bread is different because even the most domesticated sourdough is still a little wild.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Nina lives in the Gulf Islands. She found my name in a zine her daughter brought her, Baking for Biodiversity, by the Portland writer and baker Katie Gourley. She liked that I run the bakery by bicycle—she thought I milled my flour by bicycle, too!—and so she called up her local library and asked the librarian to find my phone number. She doesn’t have a tv, a computer, or a cell phone; she listens to Amy Goodman in the morning on a Bellingham radio station, and sometimes a little music afterwards if it’s any good. Doesn’t have a car and, at 80, no longer rides her bike. She bakes bread every other week—pain sauvage, “because I’m wild!”—in a 94 year old electric, cast iron oven in her 100 year old house. She is a photographer. She mentioned, in passing, that in her youth, in London, she photographed The Beatles.

Pain sauvage is wild fermented bread, made without commercial yeast or sourdough. The dough ferments with the yeast and bacteria present in the grain. This is how idli is traditionally made, and injera. I heard once of a baker in Italy who left his mixing bowl of dough to wild ferment every night. I’ve never made a wild fermented wheat bread, so I’m copying out Nina’s instructions here as told to me, with all her particulars. If you decide to make her pain sauvage, you will, of course, need to adapt the ingredients and process to your own kitchen.

NINA's PAIN SAUVAGE

Day 1
Mill 1/3c rye, 1c emmer, and 1c red fife wheat into coarse meal. Mix with an equal volume of very cold water and ferment overnight at approximately 20°C for 20 hours.
Mix 4c red fife wheat flour with 4c water. Ferment overnight at approximately 20°C for 20 hours.

Day 2
Mix the overnight ferments, 3tsp sea salt, and 6c of red fife wheat flour with a wooden spoon. Let sit for an hour. Knead for 5 minutes, and then stretch and fold every hour for 5 hours. Leave out for another three hours or so before putting the dough into the refrigerator overnight.

Day 3
Take dough out, let sit for half an hour.
Turn dough onto a table dusted with bran. Cut into 4 pieces.
Grease 4 round, glass pans and place dough into them. Scatter flax seed on top.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 600°F. Turn off. Wait half an hour. Turn back on to 600°F. This process takes about 2 hours. When the oven is hot the second time cover the pans and put them in the oven. Turn the oven down to 500°F. After 35 minutes, take off the covers. Bake for another hour.

There’s nothing fancy about this pie. No elaborate spice blend. No family secrets. Just very good ingredients put together into a very good pastry. That fantastically flaky crust is made with a blend of wholemeal spelt & buckwheat from Fairhaven Mill, organic butter, and lard rendered from Well Fed Farms pastured pigs. The filling is a mix of interesting apples gleaned from 19th century orchard remnants around Bellingham, with just enough butter and sugar to round out their flavor, and a splash of cider vinegar made from the bakery’s apple scraps.

You can order pie, among other things, in the online store. Orders due by Sunday night. Self-serve pickup next Wednesday in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, or Fairhaven.

In thanks for the abundant land we live on and in acknowledgement of violence and coercion of the Point Elliott Treaty, 10% of Wednesday’s sales will go to the Lhaq'temish Foundation.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

P.S. If pie is too sweet for your taste, here's a Black Friday rant from a couple years ago.

TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER
10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave

BREAD:
Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g)
Elwha River Spelt ($8 / 750g)
Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g)
Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g)
Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g)
Sourdough Stuffing ($6)

SWEETS:
Gingerbread Cake ($6) - There was massive and inexplicable cake collapse. The gingerbread supply is limited today.
Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2)
Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2)
Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2)
Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz)

MENU for WEDNESDAY, NOV 25
Order by Sunday night for pickup the following Wednesday.
Pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Happy Valley/Fairhaven

Red Wheat ($7.50 / 720g, $15 / 1.5kg)
Mountain Rye, cut or whole ($7.50 / 750g, $22.50 / 2.3kg)
Rosemary Cornmeal "Toast" ($8 / 750g)
Gingerbread ($16 / serves 3-4)
Heirloom Apple Pie ($30 / serves 6)
Cookies: Chocolate Chip Hazelnut, Bittersweet Chocolate, or Gingersnap ($15 / 6)

TODAY AT MARKET and NEXT WEEK FOR MARKET PREORDER
10am – 2pm, 1100 Railroad Ave

BREAD:
Red & White ($7.50 / 720g)
Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g)
Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g)
Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g)

SWEETS:
Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies ($5 / 2)
Gingersnap Cookies ($5 / 2)
Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies ($5 / 2)
Oat Scone with Strawberries ($5 / ea)
Cornmeal Rhubarb Snack Cake ($5 / ea)
Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz

Next WEDNESDAY PICKUP
Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven.
Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning.
Order by Sunday night.

Red & White
Mountain Rye
Toast: SMOKY RYE & WHEAT
Sweets: HAZELNUT BISCOTTI + LEMON POPPY POUND CAKE

We're having a small but mighty farmers market today at the Market Depot from 10-3. Come do your (bi)weekly shopping for vegetables, meat, mushrooms, eggs, cheese, honey, and bread. We will be maintaining physical distancing between stalls and limiting the number of customers on the lot. All food will be prepackaged or bagged by the farmer. Come with a shopping list so you can move quickly through the market and be prepared to pay with exact change, a credit card, or a cash app like Venmo. You can read the full safety guidelines laid out by the Market and the Whatcom County Health Department here.

Thank you for shopping at the farmers market, signing up for CSAs, stopping by popup farmstands, and ordering bread for neighborhood pickup. Thank you for planting seeds, raising backyard chickens, and culturing sourdough. I am grateful to have this work, to be able to feed you even when the world goes sideways, and to be a part of such a strong and resilient food community.

See you soon, maybe.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

TODAY AT MARKET
10am – 3pm, 1100 Railroad Ave

BREAD:
Red & White ($7.50 / 720g)
Mountain Rye ($7.50 / 750g)
Vollkornbrot ($8 / 750g)
Seedy Buckwheat ($8 / 420g)

SWEETS:
Gingersnap Cookies ($2.5 / ea)
Milk Chocolate Chip & Hazelnut Cookies ($2.5 / ea)
Oat Scones with Strawberry Jam ($4.50 / ea)
Brown Butter Shortbread ($9 / half dz)
Ginger Tea Cake ($3 / slice)

The farmers market hasn't yet decided on next week's vendors. Check social media or the webstore for updates. If I'm going, I'll have the preorder menu up by Monday.

WEDNESDAY PICKUP
Self-serve pickups in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, South Hill, and Fairhaven.
Address and directions with your pickup reminder email Wednesday morning.

Order by Sunday night.

THIS WEEK'S BAKE:
Red & White
Mountain Rye
Toast: Toasted Sesame
Sweets: Black & White Sesame Cake + Cacao & Buckwheat Shortbread

I am not, generally, an anxious person, but even I succumbed to the shriek of the news headlines last week and, in a moment of panic, rashly changed my schedule to add a second oh-shit-the-world-is-ending bake. The world isn’t ending, it’s just becoming a much harder place for those whose health and finances are insecure. I am very grateful to be among the healthy and homed, to have a vegetable garden that’s showing its first new-green growth and a bicycle that can carry me through clean air and sunshine. And I’m grateful to all of you who have gone out of your way to buy bread from this little business, which is both my livelihood and my passion.

I’m trying a new distribution method with the April Bread Subscription. To support social distancing, bread (and pastry!) pickups will now be self-serve from front porches and driveways across Bellingham. For now, pickups are in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Sunnyland, and Fairhaven. If you have a (reasonably bike-able) front porch to offer in the CBD, Sehome, or South Hill, I’ll gladly add another south end pickup to the May Subscription.

The Bellingham Farmers Market has put together a list of market vendors offering weekly subscriptions. Sustainable Connections has a longer list of CSAs from 2019. Signing up for farm (and bakery!) subscriptions helps small food businesses with cash flow through the lean early season. We are all deeply grateful to live in a community that supports us and our work. Thank you for keeping your spending within our community, for eating the food we grow and make, and for telling your friends and neighbors to sign up!

Sophie
Owner | Baker

P.S. If you work in the food industry and don’t know how you’re going to float the next weeks and months, use the discount code WORKBREADWATERSALT to take 30% off your Raven Breads order at checkout.

Practicalities:
Pickups every Wednesday in Birchwood, Columbia, Lettered Streets, Sunnyland, Fairhaven.
Orders due by Sunday for pickup the following Wednesday.
Sign up by 3/22 for 6 week (3/25-4/29) Subscription.
Sign up by 3/29 for 5 week (4/1-4/29) Subscription.

Subscriptions:
RED & WHITE subscription
MOUNTAIN RYE subscription
TOAST subscription

This week’s bake:
Red & White
Mountain Rye
Toast: Buckwheat & Molasses
Pastry: Brown Butter Shortbread

P.P.S. A bakery hygiene note: Except for double bagging the exposed ends of loaves, nothing much has changed in the bakery. I still wash my hands frequently, sterilize surfaces and dishes, bake everything at 350-550°F, handle finished product with gloves or tongs, and don’t come to work sick. According to the FDA, “Currently there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with transmission of COVID-19,” but if you want to be extra safe, sterilize your bread in the toaster.

Only uncut loaves are available at this time to reduce post-bake handling, and because they have the best shelf life.

FAMILY WHEAT (1.4 kg / $14.30) – organic wheat, water, salt.
MOUNTAIN RYE (2.3 kg / $21.30) – water, organic rye, organic wheat, organic sesame, organic flax, organic sunflower, salt, organic caraway & coriander.
ALL RYE (2.3 kg / $21.30) – organic rye, organic rye berries, water, salt.
For maximum shelf life, keep breads in a bread box, cut side down on the cutting board, or loosely wrapped with wax wrap or plastic to prevent them from drying out. Wheat bread will keep about 2 weeks, rye 3.

Good morning Bread Eaters. It's a glorious blue-sky Sunday and I'm headed for the hills, but before I go, I wanted to give you a quick update. The near future is an unknown landscape for our community and its small businesses. I remain committed to baking your daily bread because producing beautiful, nourishing food and maintaining the connections between our farmers, millers, bakers, and eaters, feels as important now as ever. Raven Breads is lucky to be in a position to weather the economic uncertainty of the coming months without the high overhead, debt payments, and payroll that are hurting so many small businesses right now. The farmers market represents over half my annual revenue, and because of that seasonal income I operate for the first six months of the year in the red, but even if the market season is delayed, I hope to find other ways to feed you.

I've been thinking about ways to make the Spring Bread Subscription safer for everyone involved. Would you like your bread bagged up in plastic? What about having more self-serve bread pickup boxes out on front porches around town? And do you have a porch on which you'd be comfortable hosting a box? If you have other ideas for better bread safety and distribution, let me know! I'll have the Spring Bread Subscription posted on the website by the end of next week.

I hope that you're healthy, your hands are clean, your community is strong, and your bookshelves are well-stocked.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

This week in the WINTER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION:

Red & White
Mountain Rye
Baker's Choice: Korn Rye or Corn Rye? (I'm still undecided)

Westphalian Pumpernickel, the Baker's Choice loaf for March 25, is available for pre-order until the end of the day.

Last Wednesday through Friday I moved briefly down to Burlington to prep for and teach a two day workshop for the Bread Baker’s Guild on baking with local grains. We named the workshop after the first clause of Arthur Ashe’s famous and ever useful quote—“Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.”—because the grain system, like every other part of the food system, is personal and political, economic and ethical, and endlessly, overwhelmingly complex. Mel, my co-teacher and the head baker at Grand Central Bakery, talked about wheat. I talked about rye. We both talked about enzymes and wet harvests, protein levels and why the commodity market is wrong about what makes “good” grain. Every time the questions got too technical we turned to our most over-qualified student, a lifelong baker and cereal scientist from OSU, and gave him the floor to expound on how nitrogen application effects protein content, or the role of the aleurone in sprouting grain. We baked breads and pastries with four kinds of wheat (Doris, Skagit 1109, Salish, Trailblazer) and two kinds of rye (Gazelle, Binto?), plus a little buckwheat on the side. Below is the recipe for the excellent wholemeal galette crust that we made for Friday breakfast and filled with roasted winter vegetables, goat cheese, and herbs, and which you’ve probably encountered at the Saturday farmers market filled with my summer fruit gleanings.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

ALL PURPOSE GALETTE CRUST
(probably adapted many years ago from a recipe by Dawn Woodward and/or Liz Prueitt)

Makes two 9-10” galettes

160g whole wheat
45g whole rye
10g dark buckwheat
2g (½ tsp) salt
145g butter, cold
65g water, cold

Mix as you would any pie crust. Chill. Roll into rounds. Add sweet or savory filling (approx. 350g filling per galette). Fold in the edges and brush the crust with a little yogurt, egg, or cream for shine. Bake at 400F for 20-30 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling, if fruit based, is bubbling nicely.

This week in the WINTER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION:

Red & White
Mountain Rye
Baker's Choice: Rye & Oat

Westphalian Pumpernickel, the Baker's Choice loaf for March 25, is available for pre-order for another week. Because this bread takes almost three times as long to make, bake, and cool as my normal ryes, the order window closes next Sunday.

We are creatures of habit, and often this is a good thing. When the daily acts that make us happy—cooking, eating together, biking in all weather, reading, to name a few of mine—are habit, we do them day after day, regardless of our moods and distractions (though, off course, the same is true of unhappy acts, like my picking up my phone an average of 44 times a day).

Habit carries me through my baking days, through the mixing, the shaping, the tasting and touching. Habit has me lining up my tools before every task, has me stacking dishes just so (nested, utensils on the side, lids on so the rye doesn’t dry into cement), has me shaping the first loaf and the fiftieth with the same sure touch. These habits, these ways my body knows what to do whether my mind is centered on the dough or wandering off in other directions, are part of my pleasure in the physical work.

But habit is, by its nature, thoughtless. I change a recipe for an immediate reason—adding salt to the preferment in the heat of summer, let’s say—and then that change becomes routine and I carry it on indefinitely—there’s still salt in my preferments, despite the fact that it’s currently 60ºF in the commissary—or until some other circumstance forces me to adjust again.

One of the best things about my winter breaks, about breaking the habits that shape my days for 11/12ths of the year, is that I come back asking, Why? Why this ratio of flour to seeds? Why Red & White wheat, rather then all hard red or all hard white? Why do I take ingredients off the pallet, stack them on a cart, roll them into the kitchen, use them, restack them on the cart, roll them back to the storage area, and return them to their pallet, rather than storing them on wheels in the first place? Why don't I schedule breaks into my bake days? Why am I still working in this windowless room? Why haven’t I built my own bakery yet?

Maybe this will be my spring resolution: make good habits, as many as possible, at home and at work, and then make time to break them.

Sophie
Owner | Baker

Did you know you can still sign up for the WINTER BREAD SUBSCRIPTION? It runs through March 25, with pickup every Wednesday in Birchwood (the front step), Downtown (Cafe Velo), or in Fairhaven (Shirlee Bird Cafe).

Sign up or order a single loaf for the week ONLINE.

Along with Red & White and Mountain Rye, each week I make a different Baker's Choice bread. My choices this winter are:

Jan 22: Rugbrod
Jan 29: Ring Rye
Feb 5: Apple Rye
Feb 12: Harvest Miche 1
Feb 19: Harvest Miche 2
Feb 26: Black Bread
March 4: Alpine Spice Rye
March 11: Rye & Oat
March 18: Korn Rye or Corn Rye??
March 25: Westphalian Pumpernickel!

There are 3 spots left in our March class!
Sign up through the Guild website.

Start Where You Are:
Using & Troubleshooting Local Grain
Instructors: Mel Darbyshire & Sophie Williams

Come learn tools for assessing, baking with, and troubleshooting local whole grains. Leaving the commodity market to support local farms and mills often means dealing with grains that vary from field to field, farm to farm, and harvest to harvest.

In this class we’ll bake with wheat and rye flours of variable quality, using sensory evaluation and the batch specs to choose products and adapt formulas to best suit our grain. We’ll talk about how growing conditions effect grain quality, how grain quality effects baking properties, and what to do with a bad harvest.

March 5-6, 2020
Thursday 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Friday 9 am - 4:00 pm

The Bread Lab
11768 Westar Lane - Burlington, WA 98233
Registration Deadline:  Sunday, March 1st
Skill Level:  Intermediate to Advanced