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What makes us tick at Vic's Bakehouse

We are committed to baking high quality bread using traditional bread making techniques, which are healthy to eat and have incredible flavours. Some of these techniques and differences to 'supermarket' style bread are described below.

Artisan Bread

Artisan bread implies an improbable level of sophistication, but sadly much 'artisan' bread is poorly made with inferior ingredients, blown up with ridiculous amounts of yeast. Real bread is a laborious business; a discipline of control: developing, fermenting, resting, shaping and baking. Dough maturation must be coaxed to a crescendo to obtain the optimal loaf.

Traditional Methods

All breads made at Vic's Bakehouse utilise traditional methods in particular systems of pre-fermentation which ensure gradual leavening and a superior result.

Poolish

A Poolish is a loose mixture of flour, water and yeast typically 20% to 40% of the finished product. This 'sponge' is active for 5 to 24 hours extracting maximum flavour from the grain and produces sensational loaves and an open weave or crumb texture. Our Batard and Honey Vienna use this system.

Biga

A Biga is a firmer version of the Poolish, which produces a very mild tasting loaf - the crumb is shot through with large honeycomb-like holes, as seen in our Organic Ciabatta

Sourdough (Levain)

Sourdough or Levain is the archetypal bread leavened with wild yeast spores captured airborne and in quality flour. A culture is built up and kept alive by a regular feeding regime of flour and pure water, and this culture is kept cool and allowed to breathe. A complex head of aroma forms after months of careful mothering. To some this is the final word in gustatory experiences.
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