Oct. 18, 2022, 7:46 p.m.
The Weekly Loaf 🍞 - Heritage wholemeal and new honey
Loaf bakery & cookery school
18 October 2022
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 announce that all our wholemeal loaves are made with sustainably grown heritage flour from one farm. We also introduce a new local honey from Quinton Meadows and expand our range from Rea Valley.
We’ll have plenty of bread and pastries on the shelves all day, with lunches served from noon on weekdays.
Scroll down for this week’s lunch menu, cookery school vacancies and community news.
Our opening hours are:
Wednesday: 12-4
Thursday: 12-6
Friday: 12-6
Saturday: 8-1
Heritage grains in the mix
For the last month we’ve been trialling a heritage flour in all our brown loaves — that’s the wholemeal sourdough, the multigrain tins and the Stirchley loaf. The grain comes from Mill Farm, which you’ll remember we visited last year, and is stoneground by our regular supplier Matthews, keeping the chain short and simple.
Our normal wholemeal flour is blended from a variety of farms and while it’s always great quality, it does mean it’s impossible to trace to an origin. This has become important to us as we’ve become interested in sustainable farming practices that work with soil ecosystems to produce quality food without draining the land of nutrients.
Jonathan, the owner of Mill Farm, has seen first hand the effects of extractive farming, and has radically transformed his approach. We’re keen to support this while maintaining the quality of bread you expect from Loaf, and we’re delighted to say it’s working.
The new flour has a slightly stronger branny taste, but to our delight it doesn’t behave that differently in the bakery. This means we haven’t had to change our processes while the quality is also the same, if not slightly better.
We’re not selling it by the kilo yet as we want to ensure we can maintain a supply, but our long-term goal is to have a range of sustainably grown heritage grains and flours available in the shop.
Introducing Quinton Meadows honey
We’re always looking to stock new local spreads and condiments so we were delighted when a new honey supplier got in touch. Quinton Meadows Honey is run by George and Sue Jackson whose hives are based in Quinton, on the edge of Birmingham. Their bees collect nectar from the Quinton Meadows Nature Reserve, Woodgate Valley Park, the local allotments and urban gardens — all of which provides a mix of rural and urban blossom.
George likes to think of their honey as ‘one year in a jar’, as the honey is harvested just once in August, creating a unique amalgam of all the flora in the area.
Sue gave us a sample jar to try and we loved it, so we’re delighted to add it to the shelves.
George with his hives
Rea Valley bees on tour
Most of the bees looked after by Rea Valley Apiary live, as the name implies, along the River Rea, which includes Stirchley so if you have a garden there’s a good chance there’s nectar from there in one of those jars. This produces a their polyfloral Local Honey — a mix of whatever flowers are in bloom when the bees are active — and its flavour is a reflection of our area.
But there are areas where one particular flower will dominate, and beekeepers will often take a colony to forage and produce a monofloral honey with a distinctive colour and flavour. Rea Valley took some of their bees out of the city for a change of scene and we’ve taken delivery of two of the subsequent monoflorals. Borage Honey from borage fields in Stratford and Heather Honey from moors in the Peak District. Enjoy!
The Breadcrumbs
Loaf news, bread news and Stirchley news.
🥖 We have spaces on the following classes next week: Thaali with Haseen Muthalali on Tuesday 25th and Sushi with Lap-fai Lee on Thursday 27th.
🥖 Not all Real Bread is White on 7th November is an open-to all celebration of Black bakers and Real Bread business owners to help inform and inspire more people to join the movement. It features Nzinga Foster-Brown of Handsworth’s Blackbirds’ Micro Bakery and will explore what the Real Bread Campaign can do to help more Black people feel welcome in our networks.
🥖 Stirchley Printworks are running a kickstarter to help the business get established in that tricky first year, with the rewards being some lovely screenprints. They want to be a community focussed space, open to all.
🥖 Boxer Short Films are screening the animated feature Cryptozoo at Glasshouse Beer Co on 30th October. It looks kinda amazing — here’s the trailer.
🥖 Another full week at Artefact, your local artist-led volunteer-run co-op. On Loaf’s radar is the second Climate Breakdown Discussion Group on Thursday at 7pm, led by Dale Hipkiss, which we got a lot from last month.
Lunches this week
Wednesday
- Curry: Tarka daal with sourdough (Ve)
Thursday
- Soup: Roasted cauliflower soup with cashew dukkah and sourdough (Ve)
Friday
- Stew: Butterbean, squash and mushroom stew with sea salt focaccia (Ve)
- Salt beef on challah
Wed — Fri
- Sourdough pizza: Mushroom, rocket pesto, olive, tomato, mozzarella, buffalo mozzarella and basil (V)
- Ham and cheese croissant
- Pine nut pesto and cheese croissant (V)
Wed — 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: Tue 8 Nov
- Simply Sourdough: Sat 12 Nov, Sat 26 Nov
- Sweet Breads and Viennoiserie: Tue 1 Nov, Tue 22 Nov
Haseen’s evening classes:
Lap’s all-day classes:
- Sausage & Charcuterie: Tue 29 Nov
Lap’s evening classes:
- Thai Cooking: Wed 9 Nov
- Sushi: Thu 27 Oct
We release new dates as soon as possible, based on tutor availability. You can sign up to alert lists for specific classes here.
Thanks for all your continued support. See you next week!
Team Loaf: Dorit, Rach, Molly, Martha, Neil, Nancy, Ian, Pete & Sarah