Melton BIG BAKE 2011

The Melton BIG BAKE Competition for 2011 took place on Sunday, 26th June.

Hambleton Bakery are thrilled to have won the following catagories:

Small Savoury Baked Goods – Hambleton Bakery Foccacia
Small but Sweet – Hambleton Bakery Pecan Bun
Wholemeal – Hambleton Bakery Wholemeal
Sourdough – Hambleton Bakery Sourdough

The Melton BIG BAKE is a traditional Baking Competition
and the first of its kind outside London.
BIG BAKE are working with the Real Bread Campaign 
to bring back the taste of  ”Real Bread”  for everyone to try.
Real Bread has nothing to hide.

Other Stockists

A Loaf with Roots by Tim Hart

This is the story of a baker and his effort to look into the pre-industrial age and recreate the bread that we might have found in Rutland in 1850.

The baker himself deserves a little introduction.  Julian Carter was born into a family which had sent every eldest son into the bakery business since the mid 1700s.  In that era, the Carters had a thriving bakery business in Bath and at one time even owned the ‘receipt’ for the Bath Oliver biscuit.

Julian’s father, John Carter had a bakery in Liverpool (where his specialities included eccles cakes, macaroons, bun loaf, decorated wedding cakes) but he was a victim, like many artisan bakeries in the last 50 years of competition from the bread factories.  He told Julian that the outlook for small bakers was dismal, he should earn a crust in another, more secure profession.

Julian chose the RAF where he was a great hit in the catering arm of that service and rose to become chef at 10 Downing Street for John and Norma Major.

He left the Air Force aged 32 and volunteered to work for us at Hambleton Hall.  It took around a year for Julian to learn a new kind of cooking, but he succeeded and took on the role of Aaron Patterson’s Sous Chef at Hambleton Hall which he fulfilled for 8 years.

Julian and I were inspired by the French Baker, Poilane, great bread encountered in France, the USA and in London as well as by the writings of Andrew Whiteley which added a British dimension to the story.

Gradually the idea for a local loaf was born.  We discovered that 90% of the bread sold in Britain today uses a factory process that combines degraded flour, very high doses of yeast an accelerated fermentation and numerous chemical additives to produce a light, damp, fluffy and tasteless bread which is a national disgrace.  The process is made possible by the use of very high doses of bakers yeast.  Since bakers yeast was only commercially available in Britain around a hundred years ago following advances in microbiology set in motion by Louis Pasteur and others in the mid 19c, we wondered how our ancestors made bread before cultured and dried yeast was available?  Sourdough was popular in France but in 19c Britain many bakeries availed themselves of the naturally occurring yeast created in traditional brewing.  Our friend, Tony Davis at the Grainstore Brewery in Oakham, fixed us up with some beer barm and Julian fed the barm to make a bread starter with potatoes and dark malt.

The other key ingredient for a local loaf is the flour and we went to Nigel Moon at the Whissendine Windmill to find a bread flour which might approximate the traditional product.  I had assumed that stone-grinding of flour was a picturesque anachronism until I learnt that the roller mills that produce modern flour strip out the germ from the grain as well as all of the husk.  They leave behind the minerals, vitamins and roughage elements for sale to the animal feed and pharmaceutical industries.  The benign grinding action of traditional millstones leaves most of the “goodies” in the flour.

Our local loaf starts it’s life with slow fermented stoneground flour.  Once the fermentation is complete the loaves are hand formed and left to finish proving in round willow baskets.  Finally they are turned out onto the floor of our wood fired oven.

The flavour has a trace of malty, hoppy notes reminiscent of the brewery.  The loaf lasts for ages without a trace of mould and tastes great toasted after 5 days or more.  It’s full of nutrients and many people who suffer from some form of intolerance to many bread products find the “Hambleton Local” kind to their digestion.

We have to admit that in one respect our local loaf is not as local as it might be.  Organic British wheat of 2008 vintage was useless for breadmaking as we had a relatively sunless summer.  So the organic wheat used to make our flour for the ‘local’ is currently imported from sunnier climes.  Lets hope for more sun this summer so that our ‘Local’ loaf become ‘local’ in every respect.

Stamford Living Magazine

Professional foodie, Tim Hart of Hambleton Hall and master baker Julian Carter have combined their love and energy for ‘real bread’. Hambleton’s Artisan Bakery is what Tim Hart would call his ‘Spa’. Always improving, always moving forward Tim is developing Hambleton Hall by providing Julian Carter with a suitable facility to bake his beautiful traditional breads from. Sarah Lyon meets with both to find out how the Hambleton Loaf is soon to become synonymous with the area.

Ten years ago trained chef Julian Carter knocked on the door of Hambleton Hall. Shortly there after Head Chef, Aaron Paterson made Julian his sous chef. Both Julian and Aaron have a reverence for the sourcing of local produce and an addiction to perfection. Breads are baked daily at Hambleton Hall. In fact Aaron features a variety of different breads on the menu to compliment dishes prepared throughout the day and evening.

Julian is a fourth generation baker. His family lived in Bath and curiously enough were responsible for taking over the patent of the Bath Oliver Biscuit from Dr Bath Oliver when he retired. The family eventually moved on to Liverpool where Julian grew up apprenticing along side his father in the family business, Carters Confectionary. For Julian, the smell of bread conjures up childhood memories of Saturdays spent in the bakers van with children tied into their seats by way of the cake racks.

Julian claims that he has always wanted to go back to baking and he explains that it was by pure fluke that Tim wanted to produce it. He explains, “as a chef you have three clear deadlines a day. A baker’s temperament has to be patient as bread has a mind of its own and can be slightly unpredictable. Time and space are essential for the slow fermenting method used to produce our signature loaves.”

Julian has an expert knowledge of his craft and is clear to point out that the high speed process of roller milling used for making mass produced quantities of flour is in his view a crime against the campaign for real bread. The heat produced by this method destroys all the natural goodness of the flour. Julian believes that the bread made with this processed flour is responsible for the dietary intolerances we see today. In contrast, the Hambleton Loaf scores heavily for its flavour and kindness to the digestion.

Hambleton Bakery will produce artisan breads from organic flour milled by Nigel Moon at Whissendine Windmill. Nigel stone grinds his wheat meaning that the raw ingredient is not overheated. All the goodness and natural health benefits remain in the flour giving the bread a lovely creamy flavour. Julian describes a healthy loaf of bread as a ‘pot of gold’, everything you need for a healthy diet. The folic acid and the wheat germ are full of essential vitamins.

The ingredients for his breads couldn’t be simpler; salt, water, flour. A long fermentation process is the secret to the success of these artisan loaves. The texture of the bread will change with the long fermentation whilst the natural sugars feed the yeast giving the bread a slightly sour taste. Julian aligns good bread with organic in which the wheat is grown free from exposure to pesticides and herbicides.

This new venture brings together an array of craftsmen from the local region and beyond. The principal oven has been sourced from Barcelona in Spain. Apparently a very low-tech device made of 6 tons of bricks and fired by wood logs. Local craftsman Michael Trigg has built the oven up from scratch. A dead trade here in
England but one that is still thriving in Spain. The oven will be fuelled by wood trimmings off the Exton Estate. Viscount and Viscountess Campden have been very supportive of the project and it is the old power station for the disused Ironstone quarry at Exton Park Estate that Julian and Tim are converting into Hambleton Bakery. It takes 10 days to build up the heat in the oven. The oven will cook from the base up allowing the natural steam from the breads to contribute to the rising process. Another local craftsman, Dick Butterworth, has sourced an old artifex machine of over eighty years old from an old bakery in Soham, Cambridge. This machine will slowly knead 50 kilos of flour and will help to produce bread like it was made before the war.

This could all sound like an expensive business but Julian is clear to point out that this organic bakery will be affordable for all. Their signature loaves, ‘Hambleton Local’ and ‘Hambleton Sourdough (using local organic stone ground flour and beer barm (naturally fermented yeast from beer) from the Grainstore Brewery) have now been in production for many months and on the menu at Hambleton Hall.

Give us this day our daily… Bread

This winter, curl up in your favourite armchair with a chunk of toasted bread and a bowl of winter broth, wake up to handmade english muffins and tea, or enjoy a pot of Earl Gray in the afternoon with handmade fruit loaf… this month, the Hambleton Bakery baker Julian Carter reveals the secrets of using your loaf…

There’s nothing like the scent of freshly baked bread. Nothing like the texture of crunchy toast for breakfast and certainly nothing like the taste of fruit loaf for afternoon tea heaving with currants, sultanas and with the gentlest frisson of spice.

Bread is certainly understated as something we consume daily, and very much sinned against with modern practices such as roller milling producing poor quality flour, and industrialised production introducing to mass-produced bread unnecessary ingredients which can even include iron filings and chalk. Modern mass produced loaves are at the mercy of tempestuous climates and poor grain yields, industrial processing and of course, consumers who demand ever-cheaper food which keeps as long as possible in the bread bin.

However, that’s all set to change as more and more foodies learn about a new artisan bakery that has recently opened just over the county borders to serve restaurants and farm shops. A self-styled ‘posh bakery’, Hambleton Bakery under the leadership of talented Julian Carter, the tenth generation of bakers in his family and a former Downing Street & Chequers chef who has returned to his first love… producing high quality bread.

Hambleton Bakery’s bread aims to reunite the public with ‘proper’ bread, free from preservatives and additives of mass-produced bread.

“Take a look at your supermarket loaf.” Says Julian. “Even premium brands may contain preservatives, enzymes to increase the speed of fermentation and even ingredients like chalk and iron filings. Our ingredients are flour, water, yeast and salt… absolutely nothing else.”

The baker is hugely passionate about his product, and clearly loves his job. A massive fan of the huge Artefax mixer from the 1960s which emulates the baker’s personal touch when creating 80kg batches of each bread, Julian can talk for ages about the benefits of long fermentation – 24 hours in the case of Hambleton’s bread, the merits of giving the flour time to absorb the water in order to begin the autolyse process, and about how lactic acid in bread is the best natural preservative. Unfortunately, when one is savouring a slice of Hambleton Local at the same time, all of Julian’s expertise, all of his scientific knowledge and artisan creativity does rather fall on deaf ears. Quite simply, it’s the best bread you’ll ever taste, and whatever the science, art, or mixture of the two we’ve to hold responsible, we’re just grateful for the opportunity to sit back, switch off, and enjoy bread baked the way it used to be.

Julian can trace his ten previous generations of bakers back as far as 1785, to their Liverpool shop at 13 Green Street. When the city lost its port status in 1980, the chef joined the RAF at Cottesmore. Having returned to the area to work in the kitchens of Rutland’s Hambleton Hall, Sous Chef Julian found himself very much in demand as an artisan baker, producing all the bread used at Hambleton Hall and its sister establishment Hart’s restaurant, both of which are owned by the area’s renowned gastronome, the charismatic Tim Hart. From the restaurant’s kitchens Julian perfected two loaves, Hambleton Sourdough, and the Hambleton Local, both of which survive today at the new bakery alongside a more conventional crusty white bloomer and tin loaf, handmade English breakfast muffins, honey and nut bread and fruit loaf made with fruit soaked in English breakfast tea. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your take on the matter, Julian became somewhat of a victim of his own success, and soon outgrew the kitchen, whereupon he and Tim decided that dedicated premises for Julian had become necessary.

The pair opened Hambleton Bakery just two weeks prior to our visit, creating a small retail outlet adjacent to the bakery itself with the aim of selling around 10% of the bread they produce to the three Rutland villages – Exton, Greetham and Cottesmore – that triangulate the bakery, reserving the remaining 90% of their stock for Hambleton Hall and Harts Hotel. Once more, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, Julian and Tim somewhat underestimated demand, finding that around half their bread is sold via retail from the bakery directly to the public. Our visit took place mid-afternoon just three weeks after the opening of Hambleton Bakery, and despite his reassurance that he would have finished baking, Julian and his team were still hard at it, struggling to meet demand!

“We’re selling each loaf as fast as we can bake it!” says Julian. “Having our own premises is superb, and word of mouth is working perhaps a little too well… as more of our customers recommend our bread to friends and family, demand really is increasing… it’s surprised even us…!”

Hambleton Bakery’s Best Breads

Hambleton Sourdough

Using high-gluten and rye flour, Sourdough’s dough is fermented for 24 hours using the bakery’s own starter culture before being baked in Hambleton’s wood-fired oven. The crumb has a distinctive, springy crumpet-like texture and is low in yeast and salt. It keeps for over a week in the breadbin unlike other artisan loaves!

Hambleton Local

So-called because the loaves’ local organic wheat is ground at nearby Whissendine Windmill, which uses traditional stone grinding methods rather than industrial roller mills which generate goodness-killing heat during their mechanical process. The dough is fermented for 24 hours using beer barm, the yeasty froth from the fermenting ale at the Grainstore brewery in Oakham. High in roughage, vitamins and minerals. Malty with a touch of bitterness and a smaller, less elastic crumb than Sourdough.

Fruit Loaf

Made from an original Carter family recipe. Currants, sultanas, peel and a little spice, soaked in English tea. The fruit and dough are fermented together for 12 hours. Baked in individual tins in the bakery’s wood fired oven.

Hambleton Launch

Hambleton Bakery opened on Monday, 1st September 2008