Good afternoon everybody,
This last couple of weeks we have spent more time on the A roads of the southern counties than we would care to admit, as we have been drawn West by a couple of bakery-related excursions, and one purely for pleasure (our good friend Nye's cooking at The Three Horseshoes at Batcombe is worth the journey). Fortunately, the hedgerows in May are particularly pleasant, abundant with wild roses, cow parsley, the odd foxglove and the first of the elderflower peeking through. A couple of weeks ago Kate attended a grain testing day at Field Bakery in Somerset. The venue; a country-kitchen style bakery in a flag-stoned barn nestled on a farm which also houses a mill. Rosy is the baker, Fred is the farmer, and they had invited a dozen or so bakers used to working with stone ground U.K. flour to come and play with some varieties which have been bulking up on the trial plots over the last few years. This was a new and tantalising concept to most of us in attendance, who included some of our closest and most admired bakery comrades; Anna from Quince, Helen from Eric's, Kim from Small Food, Sarah from Nova, and Bradley from Farro to name a few.
The day began with an interview Fred had filmed with plant breeder Nick Fradgely, introducing us to the varieties we'd be looking at (names like Flamingo, Song and Squidgen) and introducing wider questions around wheat breeding such as what is 'quality' and who decides it, and interrogating the genetic trade off between yield and protein. This is the type of discussion we bakers are rarely privy to, as the end users of the grain. But we are also the most specific in terms of our requirements, so to know more about the breeding and bulking up process was extremely enlightening. Rosy had painstakingly milled small quantities of each variety for us to test as we saw fit. Scones, pancakes, crackers and shortbread were favoured in the limited time we had available, and although non-scientific in terms of control and comparison, we seemed to get somewhere in terms of decoding their individual properties, to the extent that at the end of the day we could say which of them we would most be interested in working with in our own bakeries. Kate was drawn to the purple wheats, both for their striking colour even when milled, but also for their antioxidant properties and for their contrast to the varieties we currently have on the Hambiin menu.
After a walk round the fields, and a team-building burst of helping Fred weed out the radishes from his trial plots, it was time for reflections. It is always a nourishing experience to be around fellow bakers working along similar lines, but perhaps old age sentimentality kicked in, as Kate looked around the table and realised we'd known most of these people for a decade, and that remarkable progress has been made in that time. There has probably never been a better time to be a baker. Withstanding the tough hospitality climate, we have so many opportunities and choices when it comes to how we choose to make bread, and a supportive and now highly experienced community of fellow bakers and grain experts to call on if needed. Thank you to Fred and Rosy for organising and hosting such a special day. And hopefully we'll get some purple wheat in the mix in the not too distant future. It really is purple, by the way...
This week we headed down to Dorset, braving the A303 during half term to visit Frankham's Farm near Sherborne. Our friends at Landrace (there's that supportive community again) had shared a contact for a young farmer called Duncan growing Mariagertoba, a blend of Danish wheats designed to perform well in the organic system. We are always looking for new and reliable grain contacts who can cater to the quantities we need, it being too much for many smaller farms, but small fry to the big boys. Duncan invited us down to see the wheat growing in the fields (always a good sign) and we spent a couple of hours with him, his wife Charlotte and sheep dog Tess. Duncan's grandfather bought the farm in the 60's and in the post-war way went in for big fields and liberal spraying. Duncan took over 7 years ago and quickly concluded the conventional system as he saw it was broken and not serving the farm from an environmental or financial perspective. Thus began the conversion to organic. As well as growing grain, they rear livestock for beef and sheep for grazing and meat, and have enough land that they can build up soil fertility with several years of herbal lay and pulses before returning to wheat. It was all very impressive, and heartening to hear a positive farming story for a change. We left with an agreement to buy 18 tonnes of the 2026 harvest, a frozen leg of lamb and half a dozen eggs. Before the journey home we squeezed in a memorable lunch at Newell's French Bistro in Sherborne, which I'm sure Hugo will flesh out in these pages soon.
This week sees Pizza Night return once more, below is the menu for your perusal. Please note the salted caramel and almond ice cream pots...
PIZZA NIGHT 7.6.2026
MARGHERITA tomato sauce - cheddar curds - buffalo mozzarella - parmesan - fresh oregano
AUBERGINE tomato sauce - cheddar curds - buffalo mozzarella - roast aubergine - fresh oregano
ANCHOVY tomato sauce - cheddar curds - anchovies - fresh oregano
SALAME tomato sauce - cheddar curds - salame rustico - fresh oregano
BIANCA white base - courgettes - Bergkäse - parmesan
BIANCA + HAM white base - courgettes - Bergkäse - pork collar ham - parmesan
DESSERT Almond & butterscotch frozen parfait
On the pastry counter we have apple gateau Basque returning, and the ricotta bun is being replaced with a British classic, the cream finger, this one with strawberry compote. Valentina has coffee cake planned for the weekend.
That's all for now, thank you as always and see you soon,
Kate and Hugo