Greetings from the shop window of 2a Church Street, Saffron Walden where I am sitting writing to you in very calm surroundings now all of tomorrow's bread is shaped and in the fridges proving away nicely. More on that anon. I have been listening to podcasts this afternoon whilst shaping - I am a bit obsessed with small business owner podcasts at the moment, especially from people in similar situations to ours. I've been listening to one with Claire Ptak from Violet Cakes (she of Harry & Meghan wedding cake fame) and it's amazing to hear how her early beginnings and also her outlook on growing her business is so similar to ours. Slowly, organically, no terrifyingly huge investment or Dragon's Den moments. It's inspiring to know there are success stories out there that have come about from taking things slowly, slowly and going with your gut - my default decision making fallback. Anyway, I must crack on otherwise I'll never get home to catch up on last night's Peaky Blinders.
Can I just ask HOW is it September already? How are the summer holidays coming to an end? Where has the time gone? Although I don't think we can complain. It's been a pretty glorious summer and slightly cooler temperatures now are still a pleasure. Jeff always goes on about an 'Indian Summer' in September. What temperature defines an 'Indian Summer'? Well let's hope we get one whatever it is and that we are blessed with balmy evenings for a little longer.
September also brings the start of Sourdough September. This is a campaign started by the Real Bread Campaign charity to highlight the benefits and pleasures of real sourdough and to quash any myths doing the supermarket rounds about what makes sourdough, sourdough. And not 'sourfaux'. It is also used to encourage people to have a go at baking sourdough themselves. And to support this we have decided to offer anyone that's up for giving it a go some of our sourdough starter used for all our MMB sourdough. Bring a pot or jar or anything with a lid into the shop and we will give you a dollop for you to take away and build up at home in order to try making your own sourdough. If you're not sure what to do with it when it's home do by all means ask and we will guide you through the first few steps to build your starter into a nice, healthy leaven ready to bake with.
Back to this week's bakes. Tomorrow we are keeping things simple - we have Walden Whites and our Walden Worthy's are back - it's been a while. These are our wholemeal equivalent of the Walden Whites but smaller. And then later on in the week we have two specials on offer for you - Olive & Rosemary and Chocolate & Cranberry. Yes we are pimping our Chocolate Sourdough with cranberries to make it even more tempting for you. Both these specials will be available on Thursday and Saturday. And of course on Saturday we will have the Rugbrøds, Tinned loaves, Super Sours and COOKIES.
Would a wholemeal version of the tinned loaf be of interest to people on a Saturday? We are enjoying giving people a choice of tins so do let us know what you'd like to see alongside the regular white tinned loaves.
So there we go. Oh and don't forget this week is our last week of our current opening hours. From next week we will be trialling our new days of Thursday, Friday & Saturday opening at 10am each day.
Have a good week everyone!
Megan