BakeryBits

A crisp home-baked baguette, with all the character, complex flavour and crunch that you might otherwise have to travel to France to find, is a dream for many bakers. The particular characteristics that French millers give to their premium darker bread flours through the wheat varieties they mill gives the loaves made from it, such as baguettes, a deep rich colour, a delicate beige crumb, and an ... Read more

What Size Proofing Basket or Banneton Do I Need?   Short answer: the proofing basket or banneton weight is the dough weight - all the ingredients including the flour and the water added together.   We show all our proofing baskets or bannetons with a weight in the name, for example, our popular 1kg / 2.2lb Round Cane Banneton or Proofing Basket. What does this weight mean? It gives ... Read more

Bara Menyn is how you say "bread & butter" in Welsh and also the name of the small family bakehouse that is hidden down a side street in the town of Cardigan in West Wales. We managed to squeeze some time out of the very busy and multi-talented Jack Smylie Wild for an interview and insight into his baking life.  Bara Menyn croissant - a work of art!   Bara Menyn which was ... Read more

A Guide To Our Specialist Sugars Using specialist ingredients can set your bakes apart and make your job easier. Knowing exactly which specific ingredient you want is something we want to help you with, so we have compiled a list of our specialist sugars together their uses, to help you choose the right sized sugar that you need. You can also find related recipes below and in each product listing... Read more

You’ve got the right flour, spent time mixing it, shaped it correctly, and the rise looks good, then you try slashing the loaf with a knife and it drags and looks ugly. Well, we’re here to help you avoid that and finish your loaf as well as you started it. BakeryBits was the first UK company to offer French dough slashing blades for sale in the UK to the  public, and since then ... Read more

An Interview with Annika Naish from "Fika" Bakery in Exeter Fika (pronounced Fee-ka) is Swedish for slowing down, taking time out and sharing a tasty snack with friends or colleagues. However there's no slowing down with the energetic Exeter based Annika, who when not singing or composing jazz or working out at the gym, runs a very popular micro bakery business in Exeter, Devon. She has taken ... Read more

We're all familiar with recipes that specify flour, water, starter etc in grams, ounces, cups or spoons. But what if you want to make the recipe a little - or a lot - larger? Doubling a recipe using mental arithmetic is usually easy enough, but can still lead to annoying mistakes (at least, in my experience!). However, increasing the original recipe by a more complicated amount, such as 3.75 times... Read more

Like many countries in Europe, Belgium has a tradition for waffles with two very popular varieties widely eaten today: the "Brussels" waffle and the "Liege" waffle. The Brussels waffle, has been adopted by the USA, where it has become known as the "Belgian" waffle. In the USA, the recipe has evolved to make a lighter and sweeter waffle, risen by egg rather than yeast. On the other hand, the Liege ... Read more

An Inspiring Visit to the Axminster Community Waffle House As a grumpy old man, it’s unusual that my cynical heart is as unabashedly warmed as it was on my recent, very inspiring trip to the not-for-profit Community Waffle House, or “Waffle” in Axminster.  Axminster is a little market town in East Devon, just down the road from the BakeryBits offices in Somerset. Axminster... Read more

A pro-baker formula for the Foricher "Traverse" loaf is styled on a traditional Tuscan loaf: it has very little final shaping: cut from the bulk of dough and stretched after the final proof to the shape required.   Method: Mix the flour, 6L water, yeast and starter. Leave to autolyse for at least an hour at room temperature. Mix the remaining 0.5L water with salt until the dough becomes ... Read more

Make 6 jet black brioches for a bit of fun - why not make some with and some without the carbon powder for an interesting mix!   Mix the flour with carbon powder, dried yeast, sugar and vanilla powder then mix in eggs, honey, milk and rum. Knead by hand for about ten minutes or using a mixer for 2-3 minutes, then add the butter cut into pieces and knead again until it is completely ... Read more

"The branded Panibois boxes really help to carry our strong brand across to our customers. They also make portion control easy, and show off the focaccia at its best advantage."Peter Cook Baker & Founder Peter Cooks Bread  Worcester, England  Images courtesy Peter Cooks Bread You can have your Panibois cases customised with your logo for an additional 3p per case. There are a ... Read more

Whether for Easter or everyday, brioche is a simple yet versatile bread, perfect for making into different shapes and providing a good base for additional flavours. We've teamed up with Angus McCaig, Head Chef at The Holt, Honiton, to create an authentic brioche baguette recipe. You can make a 'plain' version, but here we've used our Aroma Panettone essential oil together with Candied Orange peel ... Read more

We are often asked whether a particular flour that we stock is bleached or unbleached. Bleaching is a chemical process to make what might be off-white flours whiter, for aesthetic reasons and also for some performance benefits. All European/UK flour is unbleached by law even though some might be labelled unbleached actually all of it is. Some countries (including US) do bleach flour but we will ... Read more

We're sometimes asked questions about rye flour, for example "what's the difference between dark rye and light rye?", and "is all rye flour wholemeal?". Hopefully we can quickly clear up any confusion you might have about rye flour and how it's sometimes labelled. Thanks to Andrew Wilkinson of Gilchester, and baking guru Dan Lepard for their input. Like wheat flours, rye can be classified by how ... Read more

There are several ways we can help the relief effort to support the Ukrainians who are fleeing the war in their country, as well as those staying at home to defend it. We also need to remember the many Ukrainian people working to bake and provide food for their communities, keeping everyday supplies flowing, even while missiles are firing above them... At BakeryBits, we’ve worked with companies... Read more

Like the croissant is to France, boller are to Norway, although we eat them with coffee at parties and when walking the forests and mountains. They are a milk-based bread, lightly sweet with just a hint of cardamom. Boller are available everywhere in Norway with and without raisins but I have an overwhelming sense of disappointment when having one without, so always include them. The most ... Read more

You'll find a number of different yeasts available at BakeryBits. Which one should you choose, how are they different from each other, and how should they be used? Some yeasts are general purpose, while others are selected and cultivated for a particular job - raising an enriched dough such as hot cross bun, panettone, for example, or to allow an industrial bakery to introduce yeast at a specific... Read more