Companion Bakery is finally producing bread. We've baked 4 times for the weekly farmer's market in Hobart. Every week the bread gets better as we learn more about the oven, mixer and behaviour of ingredients. So far I've been able to construct recipe's "live", based on what is available fresh and local each week. Freshly shelled organic walnuts and apples (apple and walnut bread), butternut pumpkin (roast pumpkin bread) and celery (romano and celery bread).
Unfortunately our walnut grower has now sold all thier walnuts interstate (disappointing) so now we make organic apple and sultana bread. This kind is live adaptation to what is available is very satisfying but only viable if we discourage regular orders for breads that use seasonal produce. Our customers will need to empower us to use fresh local ingredients...so we can avoid the trap of buying inferior goods from inefficient (refrigerated, long haul) supply chains that return very little to the grower.
Companion Bakery is potentially a great resource for users of this website. We plan to publish our recipes and invite feedback. I have certainly been inspired by contributions to this site and look forward to giving something back.
Please feel free to propose new recipes which we can have fun trying out and seeing how they behave in a professional baking environment. A web cam is currently being installed and I'll try to get regular photos and videos uploaded.
More photos soon. Graham
