Fall is upon us. Last week summer was still here, but starting Wednesday, there were two days of cooler temperatures then, boom! the first storm of the season, including a South Pender power outage for most of the day. Just like that, Summer’s done!
Sourdough September is nearly over, too! It started a few weeks back, and we only have a week left. It’s more of a phenomenon in the United Kingdom. Still, it’s evolved into an international celebration of genuine sourdough and the people who make it. The U.K.-based Real Bread Campaign and the charity, Sustain, encourage people to buy genuine sourdough bread and make their own.
Bread-like products
Sourdough bread may seem like a slam dunk to many of us, but there are vast segments of the population unaware of it or unmoved by it. Large baking operations continue to churn out millions of homogenous loaves a day and people buy them. However, these loaves shouldn’t really be called bread, but rather “bread-like products.”
Sourdough September is a reaction to significant baking interests that try to co-opt the word “sourdough,” among other things. These companies can (falsely) claim their own products are sourdough, even though they’re leavened with 100% commercial baking yeast.
Their bread-like products can be flavoured by “sourdough” additives like acetic acid that produce a sour flavour but contain no leavening action. 1 Look at the ingredients label on these plastic bread products. Many of them are barely pronounceable and possibly a little worrying.
A good plate mop
I’m being strident here. I was raised on this stuff, and when I do indulge in one of these loaves, it’s OK! As a vehicle for condiments, like creamy butter and luscious preserves, a slice of toasted plastic bread really works! The crumb is little more than mushy cotton, not as chewy as a good sourdough’s. It might also make a good plate mop for something decadent, like a sauce or egg, but it needs some help to make it palatable.
Sourdough September is meant to draw attention to the glories of genuine sourdough, made on a more human scale. Like flour, water and salt, leavened with naturally occurring yeast. Plastic bagged bread includes many more ingredients like calcium propionate (a mould inhibitor), wheat gluten, soybean lecithin, sorbic acid or fungal alpha-amylase. Some components may be undeclared because there is no legal requirement to do so.
Through programs like Sourdough September, the Real Bread Campaign is lobbying the UK to adopt something called the Honest Crust Act. The plan would be to have measures passed into law, such as legal definitions for words like “freshly baked,” “whole grain bread,” and “sourdough bread.”
The Honest Crust Act
According to stipulations laid out in the act, bread products containing ingredients like dried gluten and soy flour would not be allowed to be called bread.
There is much more to the UK’s Real Bread Campaign and no real equivalent organization in Canada, aside from passionate bakers raising awareness.
You already know that Happy Monk bread is leavened with sourdough. Happy Monk bread also uses essential ingredients (flour, water, salt, yeast) and a handful of things like seeds, spices, sweeteners (molasses, honey and malt syrup) and occasional enrichers (eggs, oil, beer or cider).
The real bread seal of approval
Our bread would qualify as real bread, according to the Real Bread Campaign. We do need to do a better job of detailing all our ingredients and where they come from.
We’re passionate about real bread. We look forward to connecting with more organizations like the Real Bread Campaign to spread the word.
It’s been a good September so far! We’re happy to be back from the holidays, and we look forward to making more real bread for the rest of the year.
A new outlook for the Happy Monk Baking Company, a shift of focus from oven-to-home bread delivery to the community of the Pender Island Farmers Market [ See Link in Profile ]
Jan 29
![A new outlook for the Happy Monk Baking Company, a shift of focus from oven-to-home bread delivery to the community of the Pender Island Farmers Market [ See Link in Profile ]](https://i0.wp.com/happymonkbaking.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png?w=980&ssl=1)
A bread-fail last week produced great-tasting Sesame-Miso Frisbees or Umami Chapeaus! What to do with the remnants? Hard-bread, rusks, croutons, or what have you. And the Ravens get their fair share, too … O come to me Huginn and Munnin! Fill your beaks and carry my greetings and blessings to Odin! [ See link in my LinkTree in HappyMonk Profile ]
.
.
.
.
#showusyourfuckedloaves, #sesamemiso, #sesamemiso, #sesamemisobread, #hardtack, #hardbread, #croutons, #huginnandmunnin, #odin, #penderisland, #southpenderisland, #happymonkbaking, #southerngulfislands|
Jul 21
Latest Happy Monk Blog: The World is Too Much With Us - In our little Island paradise, how to embrace all the beauty when the world is going to hell in a hand basket? ALSO: Baker`s Choice - Brown-Rice Miso and Sesame Sourdough [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Jul 17
Latest Happy Monk Blog: "A Bird Came Down the Walk," a brief flirtation with ChatGPT that was awkward but offered an exquisite poem by Emily Dickinson. [See LinkTree in Profile ]
Jul 3
Resurrected a couple of Salish Sourdough loaves forgotten inside Mildrith, the wood-fired oven. They emerged charred and hell-fired, sadly, so I took a knife to them and made them almost new again!
.
.
.
.
#woodfired #woodfiredoven #coboven #Mildrith #Mildriththeoven #woodfiredovenbread #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #burntbread #showusyourfuckedloaves
Jun 9
Strongly recommend installing the Smell-O-Vision™ feature on your device to appreciate the aroma of these Rye-Currant Sourdough loaves, just out of the oven. Wish I could capture it in a jar, or make a scratch ‘n’ sniff postage stamp (like the recent French stamp commemorating the baguette). And this loaf tastes just as lovely as they look!
Jun 1
The Happy Monk Baking Company
Happy Monk Tidings - May 15, 2024 🍞 - BLOG REDUX: "Saving Grace"; BAKER`S CHOICE: Sprouted Purple Barley Sourdough; REGULAR: Seed Feast.
May 15
It’s late at night and chances are there’s a baker near you having fun with bread dough …
.
.
.
.
#bakers #bakerslife #bakersofinstagram #bakerslifeforme #nighttime #nightlife #nightsky #bakingmagic
May 5
All spelt, all the time … well, with a few glugs of maple syrup
..
.
.
.
.
.
#spelt #wholegrain #tinloaves #realbread #breadbakers #breadbakersofinstagram
#artisanbreadbakers #speltbread #speltsourdoughbread #speltbread #wholegrainspeltbread #penderisland #southpenderisland #happymonkbaking #happymonkbaker
Apr 20
New Happy Monk Blog: Spring brings mixed blessings! A sense of loss, along with warmth and a new cast of light, "That Science cannot overtake / But Human Nature Feels." Westeros and Emily Dickinson`s sensitive heart. [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Apr 3
This little guy is a workhorse, plain and simple. A brute! Thursday, it milled over 27kg of incredible flour for a recipe that needed the freshest flour possible. And its output was beautiful. Wheat, spelt, rye and buckwheat. A larger mill could have handled that in a fraction of the time, but who’s complaining? Some amazing bread was the result, milled and mixed the same day. A Country Miche from an article by Eric Pallant @epallant in the Winter/Spring 2023 issue of Bread Lines.
.
.
.
.
.
#spelt #speltbread #buckwheat #buckwheatbread #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #naturallyleavened #artisanbread #realbread #rusticbread #flourmilling #flourmill #komoflourmills #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands
Mar 2
Latest Happy Monk Blog - The Living Rock Island – Our Little Corner of South Pender Island 🍞 [See LinkTree in Profile]
Feb 28
O, for a slice of raisin sourdough! that hath been
Warm’d a long age in the deep delvéd oven,
Tasting of Hestia and the ocean green,
Rest and a slow moving song and sunburnt mirth!
O for a loaf full of the warm South
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded raisins winking at the crumb,
And cinnamon-stainéd mouth;
That I might eat, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.
— Apologies to John Keats for my butchery of his “Ode to a Nightingale”
Feb 25
At the outset of the Happy Monk Baking Company, I cherished those early mornings, working alone with Mildrith in the dark before the birds began their glorious morning chorus. The world was silent, unhurried. Mildrith and me, the trees, the solid earth, a passing deer, the baskets of bread dough waiting for the oven.
Going to work in the pre-dawn hours was something bakers did, I thought. They sacrificed sleep and delivered their bread early to appreciative customers. It was a romantic notion on my part, a naïve commitment to the baking trade without fully understanding the consequences, i.e. sleep debt.
It was satisfying to have loaves ready for some customers before noon; it was a triumph! But by the time most of the bread was ready for delivery, bagged and labelled, my eyelids were growing heavy, my mind fuzzy, my body slowing down.
And it wasn’t safe driving up-island.
.
.
.
.
#bakerslife #bakers #sleepdeprivation #woodfired #woodfiredoven #woodfiredovenbread #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakery #happymonkbakingcompany
Feb 1
Milling a little corn to mix in with some marinated olives before they go into a tapenade infused dough. Big olive flavour … plus a rare shot of Mildrith, the wood-fired oven!
Nov 19
Happy Monk Tidings - November 15, 2023 BAKER`S CHOICE this week: Olive Sourdough Loaf; AND: An Emotional Weather Report [ See LinkTree in Profile ] 🍞
Nov 15
Happy Monk Tidings - November 1, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE: Sourdough Sandwich Loaf; BLOG: Don`t Let That Wonder Lawyer Tell You It`s Not Real Bread! [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Nov 1
Dylan Thomas, one of my muses, would have been 109 years old this Friday, Oct. 27. One of a small-handful of poets whose words are cherished and summoned often for their music and wisdom. They soothe, they sing, they evoke. I`ll be thinking of him this bread day, under "the mustardseed sun"….. and the "switchback sea"…. as he "celebrates and spurns his driftwood thirty fifth wind turned age."
.
.
.
.
#dylanthomas #poetsofinstagram #poetrylovers #poetryisnotdead #poetryofinstagram #poets #poetryislife #poetrylove #poetrydaily #poetryworld #poetryinstagram #bakerpoets #poetryforbakers #southpenderisland #penderisland
Happy Monk Tidings - October 25, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE - Sprouted Emmer Sourdough; BLOG: Happy Birthday, Dylan Thomas! [See LinkTree in Profile ]
Oct 25
Happy Monk Tidings - October 18, 2023 - 🍞: BAKER`s CHOICE: Seedy Spelt and Rye Bread; BLOG: It Starts With Wonder? What`s That?
Oct 18
Happy Monk Tidings - October 11, 2023 BAKER`S CHOICE: Potato Rosemary Bread; BLOG: Swimming with Otters 🍞
Oct 11
Happy Monk Tidings - BLOG: Abundance: Season of Apples; Baker`s Choice: Pender Island Apple Bread with Pender Apples and Twin Island Cider - October 4, 2023 🍞 [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Oct 4
Happy Monk Tidings - September 27, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE THIS WEEK: Harvest Bread; BLOG: Positively Fourth Avenue - [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Sep 27
Happy Monk Tidings - September 20, 2023 🍞 - BAKER`S CHOICE: Garlic Levain Bread; BLOG: Harumph! Author Says Leave the Baking to the Professionals! [ See LinkTree in Profile ]
Sep 20
A hefty Country Miche, formula from Breadlines published by Bread Bakers Guild of America. Hefty in size, hefty in flavour. Four flours (Sifted Metchosin Wheat, Rye, Buckwheat, Spelt), a super-active levain and an intense crust colour. I think I’m addicted! It’s kind of finicky, though, and trying to work out a reasonable schedule to produce 40 loaves for Happy Monk customers.
.
.
.
.
. #bread #realbread #naturallyleavened #baker #bakery #bbga #artisanbread #breadhead #sourdough #sourdoughbread #penderisland #southpenderislands #happymonkbaking #happymonkbakingcompany #wholegrainbread #breadhead #michebread #realbread #rusticbread #southerngulfislands #southerngulfislandsbakers #southerngulfislandsbakeries
Sep 14
See this video that explains how sourdough flavour can be added to dough to make the bread taste like sourdough.↩