Bread

Rick bakes Tuesdays and Thursdays for the Mad River Valley Food Shelf. He bakes other days for Commununity suppers, church dinners, fundraisers, school events, and special orders

On Saturdays, the basic bread and its varieties are for sale at the Tempest Book Shop. Usually we have our basic “wild yeast” sesame bread, and variations of it including blackcocoa/molasses/maple, rosemary, and cinnamon raisin. Sometimes a sweet almond bread sneaks in.
Cub Scouts (ages 7-10) have learned to bake, and Saturday mornings folks have stopped by for an hour or two to watch and learn to shape the dough into boules with their own hands, ask questions, and take home some bread and some “sourdough” starter. We let the sourdough starter brew for an extra day or two and allow the yeast to turn the lactic acid (sour) from the lactobacillus into more bread flavor. (Yum!)
The coarse salt on the outside of this bread makes the crust highly palatable to children and adults- like pretzels or potato chips. Less salt inside the bread means the dough rises faster, and we can bake more loaves in less time.
Our “personal best” was 96 loaves in one night to load up Thanksgiving baskets for needy families. Our most fun was providing bread when Bread and Pupper came to Fayston School as “artists in residence” and built a script and puppets with the children. We provided the bread.
Yes this is technically vegan bread. But the ten-year process of developing and fine-tuning this recipe and method was to make nutritious bread that children would love. Fayston School children guided this process, which was deemed successful when Rick was asked by the sixth graders to be their graduation speaker, knowing the would bring bread for all.
The bread is about one third whole wheat and two thirds King Arthus bread flour, with about 1000 sesame seeds inside each loaf, with an over-developed sourdpough starter.