22 August 2023
This is the weekly newsletter from Loaf in Stirchley, keeping you abreast of our bakery and cookery school, and other news we think you might be interested in.
This week we're bringing back the Maslin sourdough, even though it never went away. We're also putting some prices up and closing on Tuesdays. See below for why.
Note we are open on Friday and Saturday this week having scrubbed the bakery and redecorated the shop. Welcome back!
Scroll down for this week’s lunch menu and cookery school spaces.
🍞 Pre-order your bread and pastries 🥐
We’ll have plenty on the shelves all week, with lunches served from noon on weekdays.
This week we are open:
Friday: 12-6
Saturday: 8-1
From next week we are open:
Wed - Fri: 12-6
Saturday: 8-1
Return of the Maslin (it never went away)
A few years ago we stopped calling our brown sourdough "Maslin" and started calling it "Wholemeal Sourdough". We did this because people kept asking us what a "Maslin" was, because we want our bread to be accessible and not alienating, and because it was the most wholemeal of our sourdoughs, so what's the harm?
Well, it's not 100% wholemeal. It's a blend of wholemeal, white and rye flour, and that's not something we should sell as a wholemeal loaf.
Recently there's been a bit of a push from the Real Bread Campaign around the mislabelling of bread and there's a section in The Bread and Flour Regulations (1998) stating that the word "wholemeal" should not be used unless all flour ingredients are wholemeal. And since we're long-standing members of the Real Bread Campaign, it would be a bit weird not to go along with this.
But what is a Maslin? The word itself has a similar origin to "miscellany" and broadly means a mixture composed of different materials. So a Maslin Loaf is a loaf made of a variety of grains – in our case wholemeal, white and rye. It's a mix, a blend, a maslin, and it's been a Loaf staple since we opened in 2012. Even though it's not always been called that.
(The question is now begged, will we do a 100% wholemeal loaf? Watch this space...)
Prices are going up
The cost of running Loaf has gone up a lot over the past couple of years. This is, of course, happening to across the board. Everyone in our supply chain has seen costs increase and are passing that to us. We spent this spring and summer looking for efficiencies and savings across the business while maintaining our standards but it's got to the point where, in order to stay in business, we're having to put our prices up.
Cookery school classes got their new prices last week and most bakery prices are going up from this Friday. You can see the prices of the core baked goods on this page and lunch prices have increased by a similar amount.
TTFN Tuesdays
We've thought long and hard about this over the summer and unfortunately we cannot make Tuesdays work with the current Loaf business model. So from next week Loaf will be open Wednesday to Saturday. Our hours on those days will stay the same.
Tuesday is not our busiest day and, while we do very well with lunches, the massive increase in energy costs is hitting it hard. Keeping the ovens off for one day should make a big difference.
Over the next few months the bakers are going to use this time to overhaul how we run the bakery, with an eye to changing things up next year as we get ready to move into the new building.
While reducing hours never feels good, we're seeing this as a positive decision to give us the space and time to ensure Loaf is ready to give you bread at a high quality and a fair price, whatever challenges the world throws at us next.
We will review Tuesday opening in November.
New Pip's Sauce just dropped
It's been a while since the awesome Pip launched a new hot sauce and this looks like a good'un. Made in collaboration with Attic Brew Co up the road, Brewed is her first fermented hot sauce, made with "fruity pepper, spicy chilli and sweet onion. The process of fermentation produces acidity that cuts through the spice, whilst drawing out unusual flavours from the ingredients".
A gaggle of bottles of Brewed arrived this week so be sure and check them out.
Lunches this week
Friday
- Curry: Coconut, new potato, chickpea and spinach with sourdough (Ve)
- Salt beef on challah
- Sourdough pizza: Olives, parmesan, cheddar, mozzarella and spicy spinach oil (V)
Fri – Sat:
- Sausage rolls
- Vegetable rolls (V)
Lunches are made fresh weekdays for 12 noon.
Our menu for the week — with ingredients and allergens — is on the website.
Cookery school classes
The following classes have spaces as of this newsletter being posted.
Loaf’s all-day classes:
- Bread — Back to Basics: Sat 23 Sep, Tue 24 Oct
- Simply Sourdough: Sat 16 Sep, Sat 21 Oct
- Sweet Breads and Viennoiserie: Sat 9 Sep, Sat 14 Oct
- Baking with Heritage Grains Returns in November
- Wholegrain Baking with Tom Baker: Sat 28 Oct
Loaf’s evening classes:
- Handmade Pasta: Tue 12 Sep, Wed 11 Oct
Haseen’s evening classes:
Lap’s all-day classes:
- Sausage & Charcuterie: Sat 4 Nov
- Seafood Masterclass: Sat 7 Oct
Lap’s evening classes:
- Thai: Wed 13 Sep
- Sushi: Thu 21 Sep
- Ramen: Thu 7 Sep
- Dumplings: Wed 6 Sep
- Knife Skills: Wed 20 Sep
Classes for November will be released mid-late September. You can sign up to alert lists for specific classes here.
Thanks for all your continued support. See you next week!
Team Loaf: Molly, Ian, Nancy, Sarah, Pete, Dave, Dorit, Martha, Neil & Rach
Website: loaf.coop
Socials: Instagram / Mastodon / Twitter / Facebook