Genesis

In the beginning of Bakehouse Bread and Cookie Company there was... yeast; a tasty microbe that floated wild and carefree, avoiding air purifiers and filters in neighborhoods near you. Unfortunately for the yeast's freedom, but fortunately for Bakehouse, our particular strand of this wild Saccharmoyces cerevisiae (the scientific name for Baker's Yeast), lured by an irresistible mixture of water and flour, was caught, domesticated, and cultivated in 1972.

Why, you might ask, we chose to capture wild yeast rather than to go the easy, pragmatic, practical, well trodden route and buy the manufactured, prepackaged, handy dandy commercially raised yeast? Well, you could say the answer to that question begins over 5,000 years ago when the Ancient Egyptian bread makers first discovered yeast's leavening properties. Or perhaps you could find the origins of our answer some 2,100 years ago when the first Baker's Guild was formed in Rome (168 B.C.). Or, if you are not one for ancient history, we could jump to the 1950's when the success of processed "wonder" breads reached its pinnacle, dominating the bread boxes of American homes. Our story begins the days when REAL bread lost its fan-base. The days when the United States first began to forget about how much it loved the scent of bread, fresh from a bakery. Bottom line: we use wild yeast, because it's the only way to make quality artisan bread: the right way.

In 1972, as the sole member of my future bakery, I made an executive decision to learn to bake bread the way bakers had baked it when baking was considered more than just an occupation; when artisan bakery was a calling and bread making was an art. So on a shelf in the closet of my farmhouse, I put a jar of a soupy mixture of flour and water as bait to entice the flying yeast from the sky. Within 10 days and after daily feedings of untreated flour and water, I cultivated my first yeast culture.

However, the process of harvesting wild yeast turned out to require skills and finesse that I hadn't expected. The magic of capturing and using wild yeast eluded me until I studied with an Artisan Bread Baker at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. He taught me the science and physics of bread making.

Later, at the National Baking Institute in Minneapolis, I apprenticed under a French Master Baker who gave me the confidence to start out on my own. Finally, with skills honed, a Volvo wagon, and dogged enthusiasm, I began selling loaves to restaurants, grocery stores and farm markets all over the Miami Valley. The following year my husband and I opened a retail front offering baked goods and coffee as well as artisan breads. And that was the birth of Bakehouse Bread and Cookie Company! Fortunately, people really appreciated quality artisan bread, so after 3 years we were able to more than double the size of our original 1700 square foot shop, add a sandwich deli, and, purchase my pride and joy, an oversized stone hearth oven from Verona, Italy.

Margaret Begg is the Founder and Master Baker of Bakehouse Bread and Cookie Company.


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