Good afternoon one and all,
We have written many times about staging, the wonderful concept, commonplace in our industry, of spending time at establishments you admire to gain knowledge, practical skills, and meet new people. For obvious reasons, I haven’t been able to partake in any of this sort of thing for the last 18 months, until this week when I had the pleasure of spending 2 days with Helen Evans at Eric’s in Dulwich. A compact bakery on a residential street, Eric’s has been offering up exquisite viennoisserie and stoneground sourdough bread for the last two and a half years, and justifiably has queues snaking around the block every Friday and Saturday.
With a small team, Helen has created a culture of excellence, producing outstanding bakes such as walnut morning bun with espresso custard, brioche with greengages, brown sugar custard and oat streusel, and savoury scroll with tapenade, sweet onion and sheep cheese. My reward for joining the pastry bake at 5am on Friday was a still warm pain au chocolat, honestly the best I’ve ever tasted, buttery, light but with depth, a super tender crumb and crisp exterior, with a mug of filter coffee alongside. I was entrusted with tasks such as mixing the rye breads, egg washing the pastries, shaping doughnuts and brioche, but the main point of the exercise (aside from procuring a warm pain au chocolat) was to spend time in Helen’s orbit, observing the pattern of the bakery day and the way the physical space is used, but also the level of thought, skill and attention to detail which goes in to each element of each product. You leave the best stages feeling buoyed and inspired, returning to your practice with questions you are eager to pose, and theories to test out. Thank you Helen and team for having me, and for letting a diehard bread person loose on a laminator.
This coming week on the counter we have just a couple of changes. The rumour of Styan damsons came good, and so we are saying goodbye to the Chelsea and making damson cream buns - enriched dough with sharp damson compote and crème fraiche cream piped into the centre, dipped in clarified butter and vanilla sugar. The first of the pears are in, to be found in a brown butter hazelnut financier. The walnut tart and apple tart remain for another week, as does the chewy ginger cookie, which always makes us remember our dearly missed customer Gillian, as it was her favourite. There’s a few sandwich highlights worth mentioning: ham and celeriac remoulade, or tuna salad (bonito from the Bay of Biscay, Ham and Cheese Co capers, parsley, house mayo and pickles) at Iffley Road, and Fosse Meadows roast chicken aioli and Tuna Melt (the aforementioned tuna mix draped in Westcombe cheddar) at the Covered Market, not forgetting our hot breakfast sandwich milk rolls (any combination of streaky bacon, soufflé egg, sausage, Ogleshied cheese, roast tomato ketchup) which are steadily gaining a reputation as the heartiest breakfast in town.
To finish, this week Hugo drank a bottle of Kernel's Running Porter. This beer was the result of collaboration between London's finest brewery and Neal's Yard Dairy. The brief was to create a beer to best pair with British territorial cheeses. There is a superb article on the history of porter and its association with cheese on the NYD website that is well worth a read. The beer is not as bitter or heavy as you might expect from a porter. Yes it's malty and sweet but also spicy, earthy and herbaceous with lovely freshness. With a slice or two of country loaf and a chunk of Wensleydale it made for a first class supper. There are still a few bottles on the shelves at the bakery, grab 'em before I do. And get yourself some Kirkham's Lancashire while you're at it.
That's all for this week. Here's to your health and happiness.
With thanks as always,
Kate and Hugo