I spent over a year meeting and training with French and American bakers, learning best quality methods for baking the kind of bread that I have always wanted to eat, but could rarely find: bread that reflects the quality of the grain, has a pleasant complex character of fermentation, complements food and wine, has an open not-dense texture, contrasts between crust and crumb, isn't dried out the day after you buy it, and is purchased from someone who crafted the bread from the best raw materials. For just a few bucks, at that.>
I also spent much time searching out dozens of the best American
bakeries and French boulangeries to establish a reference point for great
bread - just like an artist would want to spend time at the Met, the Louvre,
the Uffizzi; or a jazz musician would spend countless hours listening to
Coltrane, Parker, Tatum, Gillespie; how can a baker really strive for the
highest quality without experiencing a standard representing the craft of
the best bakers
Good bread takes time, the best ingredients, methods that favor quality over speed of production, and a great oven. The finest breads also require artisans that understand the alchemy that turns flour, water, yeast, and salt into the greatest, most complete food on earth.
Bread is a complete food that contains complex carbohydrates and proteins, giving your body an efficient source of energy. It’s been a staple of western man’s diet for thousands of years.
Our breads are excellent all by themselves, with meals, or with a glass of wine. You want a low fat diet? Eat a lot of good bread. While it tastes good with butter spread on it, we usually eat our bread plain - it doesn't need butter to be enjoyable, and we figure, why not save our butter budget for a croissant in the morning?
Follow these links for essays on natural leavening, aka sourdough, the craft of the baker, and a discussion titled "what is good bread?"
Most importantly, do not refrigerate, it will kill the flavor. If wrapped in plastic the crust will soften but the shelf life will increase to 5 or 6 days. The crust can be restored with a quick shot in the oven.
Country
Brown:
– ingredients: white and whole wheat flours, water, levain, sea salt, and a little bit of fresh yeast.
This levain bread was modeled after the famous pain Poilane, the French brown bread that re-established the standard for rustic, country-style breads.
This bread is made in three shapes and sizes:
- 1.75Kg boule (Ken’s favorite!). Slightly smaller than a Poilane boule, lasts for several days. A little bit tighter crumb than the regular loaf, and a wonderfully subtle character of fermentation.
- Batard, a regular sized loaf. Nutty flavors characterize this loaf, with open, glistening holes on the inside. Suitable for sandwiches, toast, and dinner bread. Stored in a plastic bag, will last several days.
- Demi-baguette. A small loaf that most people slice in cross-section slices like a normal baguette. A good dinner bread. Best eaten the day of purchase.
Walnut:
– ingredients: white and whole wheat flours, water, walnut pieces, levain, sea salt and a little bit of fresh yeast.
A versatile bread with great flavor. Excellent toasted. Good with cheese, toasted with butter and honey, or with a nice rillette. We use this bread to make a pear & goat cheese sandwich.
Country Blonde:
– ingredients: white wheat flour, rye flour, whole wheat flour, water, levain, sea salt, and a little bit of fresh yeast.
We bake this bread to a dark reddish-brown color to maximize the flavor in the crust, sometimes just shy of being burnt to get that caramelized slightly bitter taste on the ends of the loaves. Excellent as a table bread, for sandwiches and toast. If you want a poached egg on levain toast this is the ideal bread.
This bread is made in four shapes and sizes
- 3Kg boule (Ken’s favorite!). The flavor of the crust and the character of fermentation is most completely realized in the larger sized loaves. Favored by many chefs, we deliver these big fellas to many restaurants around Portland.
- Quarter boule. This is the 3K boule quartered so you can enjoy this great bread without having to buy the entire boule.
- 2 Kg boule & 2Kg crown loaf aka couronne
- Batard, a regular sized loaf. Irregular hole structure, real crust. These are the loaves most people buy – good for sandwiches, toast and dinner bread. Stored in a plastic bag, will soften the crust and last several days.
- Demi-baguette. Should be eaten the day it is purchased or wrapped in plastic to keep it from drying out.
Baguette:
– ingredients:white wheat flour, water, sea salt, baker’s yeast.
We bake our baguettes twice daily, out of the oven by 8am and again by 1pm. The baguette represents the baker’s craft in a different way from the more rustic levain breads. Our ideal is to produce a finely textured, crispy crusted baguette with a light crumb and a refined, delicate flavor. The baguette is a city bread, for people who live close to their boulangerie, and can stop by daily, or sometimes twice daily, for their bread. Its flavors are subtle, complimentary to all foods, whether robust stews, or light seafood dishes, salads, or pastas.
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Ficelle: a skinny baguette, closer in size to the baguettes you would buy in Paris. We use these for our jambon sandwich. Great for eating plain or with butter. | |
Multigrain:
– ingredients: white wheat flour, whole wheat flour, water, sea salt, baker’s yeast, oats, rye, barley, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, triticale, rolled whole wheat.
Delicious high fiber bread, will last 4 days in plastic. Makes great sandwiches and toast!
Out of the oven by 10:30am every day.
Pain Rustique:– ingredients: white wheat flour, water, sea salt, baker’s yeast.
The world needs a soft white sandwich bread that tastes good! Made from our baguette dough, the pain rustique is a great bread for pb&j, toast, croutons, and many sandwiches. Soft crust, tighter crumb than our other breads. Kept in plastic will last for about 3 days.
Ciabatta:
– ingredients: white wheat flour, water, sea salt, baker’s yeast.
Made with a biga, this crusty white bread has great flavor, a very light and soft crumb, crackly dark brown crust. Most of the ciabatta we bake is delivered to Portland restaurants such as Fife, Ciao Vito and Paley’s Place. An ideal dinner-basket bread, perfect with any sauced food, also good for croutons, we use ciabatta croutons for Caesar Salad at Ken’s Artisan Pizza and on Monday Night Pizza at the bakery.
Out of the oven by 10:30am every day. We sell these in rounds and rectangle shapes.
Ciabbatta buns – we think these make the best burger buns in PDX! Used by many restaurants, including Le Pigeon, Carafe, and VQ for burgers.
Raisin-pecan:
– ingredients: white and whole wheat flours, rye flour, water, levain, yellow and purple raisins, pecan pieces, sea salt, and a little bit of fresh yeast.
Ken developed this bread after visiting the famous Kayser bakery in Paris, thinking he could do better. We make this bread in demi-baguette shape. Good for eating plain, with cheese, or with butter.
ingredients: : white and whole wheat flours, rye flour, water, levain, sea salt, and a little bit of fresh yeast.
In France this would be a pain de métiel, half wheat flour, half rye flour. We use whole rye flour instead of the more commonly used white rye, to give this dense bread a more intense rye flavor and higher fiber. Slice this bread thin. Will last a week in a plastic bag. Excellent toasted. Serve with a soft cows-milk cheese, with smoked fish, or with butter. Paley’s Place serves this bread grilled with oysters.