London bakery competition - August 31 '08

[Dan Lepard]

Quite amazing, these pics were taken about midday, lots more entries after that. Such an extraordinary selection of entries, everything from dreadful to wonderful, but just what you want a baking competition to be.
(click on the pics to see a larger version)
Dan

[madeleine]

I competed in the Brockwell Bake on Saturday, and it was the most rewarding thing I've done in ages! thanks for organising it, Andy.
Where are baking competitions advertised normally? (I want More!!)

[atty]

Hi all,

more pics of our Brockwell Bake with some commentary from Dan up at http://www.brockwell-bake.org.uk/

I should also be adding winning recipes when I have collected them

personally I came away from the day very satisfied that the idea had turned into a very enjoyable reality - without too much stress, particularly for myself - and that the idea/event "has legs" in other words there are enough people into raising their own standard of baking and watching/tasting others, pro and amateur doing so as well that there is scope for the event to continue and to grow ...

so we have every intention of repeating the experience next year, with some tweaks and additions to the programme - if you want to be kept informed closer to the time you can fill in the form at bottom of http://www.brockwell-bake.org.uk/

I find Dan's remarks in his commentary on the event http://www.brockwell-bake.org.uk/#dan suggesting people should consider using better, more flavoursome flours interesting. For me this can mean not only adding flours from other grains to a white wheat mix but also I feel stoneground white wheat flour has a a big advantage over roller milled. Personally I do also add between 3% to 5% rye to my white wheat dough mixes, in my case T130 from Moul-bie which I can get from a local baker - for the sake of liveliness of dough, some additional flavour and I feel better keeping qualities. However I can see that for many UK home bakers this is more difficult to do since nearly all easily available rye flours in shops are 100% wholemeal and often quite coarsely ground - not what you want to add to dough for a flute etc

finally just want to note with some shock and admiration that one of the judges at the Brockwell Bake, Giuiseppe Mascoli from the Franco Manca Pizzeria managed to correctly identify the sourdough strain in my rustic white as being from the island of Ischia. I know he uses same starter for his pizzas but the thing is (apart from compliments to his refined taste buds) he got his originally more or less directly from the bakery whereas mine came via Sourdoughs International.

yours
Andy Forbes