Rye not?

We started out with our Revolutionary Rye, way back when Tom first started Loaf back in 2009 and it has graced our shelves ever since!

Our recipe was based on Andrew Whitley’s Russian Rye, ours is 100% rye sourdough, topped with toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

Why is it revolutionary? (Everybody wants to know!) Mainly because back when Tom started, no one was making a rye sourdough up here in the Midlands at least! Not only that, but he figured given its Russian roots, he’d pay tribute to their revolutionary history…

If you didn’t already know, Rye is a type of grain, low in gluten, high in fibre, protein and most importantly flavour.

Over the years, we’ve played around with rye specials such as the Borodinsky and Volkornbrot, but this year we’ve decided to feature them more frequently, because rye is great, and ‘rye’ not right?

Our Borodinsky is made with a rye starter and flour, malt extract, molasses and caraway seeds for a surprisingly refreshing flavour despite its density! Find it in the shop on TUESDAYS

Our Volkornbrot, is made with a rye starter and flour, chock-full of sunflower seeds, and kibbled rye for lots of texture! Find it in the shop on THURSDAYS

Will you be trying it? Let us know! Tweet or Tag us – we’d love to see how you’re enjoying it!

Don’t forget!

Hi guys!

Don’t forget our opening times for Xmas and New Year!

We’re open from 8.15am – 1pm Friday 23rd (tomorrow), and the same again Saturday 24th.

We’re no longer taking stollen, mince pie or macaron pre-orders as they are already made to order! We will have a selection available to buy on a first come first served basis in our shop both Friday and Saturday.

We sold out within a few hours today so expect a queue and come as early as you can to avoid missing out; we’re working through the night tonight and Friday to make as much as we can (we’ve even roped in Tom off his paternity leave to lend us a hand!) so we hope to disappoint as few people as we possibly can!

You can still purchase books and cookery school vouchers in the shop too!

We’ll be closed from Christmas day until Wednesday 4th January 2017, when we open from 12pm as normal.

Thank you for all your support this year, we can’t do this without you!

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to you all! 

Love, Team Loaf x

 

New dates for courses 2017!

Illustration: www.walternewton.

 The announcement of our Cookery School courses 2017, has been somewhat long awaited by the eager and organised amongst us, so here it is just in time for Xmas!

NEW dates for January-March 2017 are now available for:


– Bread: Back to Basics
– Bread: Simply Sourdough
– Sweet breads and Viennoiserie
– Flavour Geography: South Indian Dosa
– Handmade Pasta
– Macarons

Plus many more!

We’ve worked hard to fit in as many courses as we can, so we hope you’ll find something to suit your needs!

pig butchery Dosa Workshoppasta bread back to basics Seafoodone_new2 sweet breads

If not, why not buy a gift voucher?

You can purchase Cookery School gift vouchers from £1-£150!

Further dates will be staggered throughout 2017.

*Foraging & Earth Oven Building will be available from March.

Lamb & Poultry will be available from February.*

Happy Booking!

Oh… Crumbs presents ‘I Heart New York’

After our storming pizza night back in January, we’re going all intimate for the next Oh Crumbs… pop up. We’re teaming up with chef Carl Finn and wine expert Matt Beck to present our homage to NYC – an evening of food, wine, cocktails, and music inspired by the big apple. Places are limited, and it’ll all be happening round my gaff in Cotteridge on a Wednesday in April – date tbc very soon.

Check out the menu for the evening below to whet your appetite. Booking info will follow when we have a date confirmed…

 

Oh… Crumbs presents “˜I Heart New York’

After our storming pizza night back in January, we’re going all intimate for the next Oh Crumbs… pop up. We’re teaming up with chef Carl Finn and wine expert Matt Beck to present our homage to NYC – an evening of food, wine, cocktails, and music inspired by the big apple. Places are limited, and it’ll all be happening round my gaff in Cotteridge on a Wednesday in April – date tbc very soon.

Check out the menu for the evening below to whet your appetite. Booking info will follow when we have a date confirmed…

 

Loaf HQ – coming soon in 2012

I just wanted to write a quick blog post before I finish for Christmas to let you know our plans for the New Year. If you follow us on Twitter you’ll know by now that we have signed a contract for a lease on a new premises on our local high street in Stirchley, south Birmingham. This is great news as we’ve been operating from Jane’s and my house for 2 years now, and we’re bursting at the seams!

The property (pictured right) has been recently purchased by Everards the brewer, with the purpose of Loaf being their tenant at the building. the new Loaf HQ will be the first premises established as part of Everards’s ‘Project Artisan’ – an innovative scheme to purchase and then lease out buildings suitable for artisan food and drink businesses that need to expand, initiated by Everards after the success of their project to convert pubs for micro-breweries (Project Willam). Everards investment in the property means that Loaf can take on a bigger and more suitable premises than we otherwise could have done and we are very grateful that they came along when they did. We’re currently waiting on planning permission for the conversion of the premises, and there will then be 2 months of building work to complete. This means we are hoping to be in the new place by late March or April.

What will the new place do?

Loaf has been running a community bakery and cookery school for two years now, and the new premises is primarily an expansion of those – there will be a 12-person cookery school on site (visible from the pavement!), as well as a bakery producing a range of real bread for Stirchley and the surrounding area. They’ll also be a retail space, which Loaf is giving to South Birmingham Food Co-operative to run as a joint space. They will be selling our bread in the shop, alongside store cupboard essentials, wholefoods, and eco cleaning products etc – all ethically sourced and fairly priced.

Bread Bonds

Everards are investing in the refurbishment of the property, which is an enormous help, and means we only need to buy the equipment we need and fit it into the property when we’re handed the keys. We need to raise around £25,000 to kit out the bakery and cookery school. In January we will be doing a ‘bread bond’ issue which we hope will raise the majority of that cash. We are looking for people interested in buying ‘loanstock’ – essentially a £1000 loan to Loaf for 3 years. During the 3 years, bread bond holders will get an interest rate on their loan, which instead of being paid in cash will be paid in the equivalent value in bread. At the end of three years, the bread bond holder get’s their £1000 back. If this is something that might interest you and you’d like to be included in the bond issue or would like more details please email me at tom@loafonline.co.uk – I won’t be answering emails until after the new year, but I’m guessing you’ll be pretty busy too, and i’ll be in touch asap after new year.

There’ll be plenty of updates next year as the project progresses, so keep your eyes peeled to the blog or twitter for all the latest. In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, Peace,

Tom.

Loaf HQ – coming soon in 2012

I just wanted to write a quick blog post before I finish for Christmas to let you know our plans for the New Year. If you follow us on Twitter you’ll know by now that we have signed a contract for a lease on a new premises on our local high street in Stirchley, south Birmingham. This is great news as we’ve been operating from Jane’s and my house for 2 years now, and we’re bursting at the seams!

The property (pictured right) has been recently purchased by Everards the brewer, with the purpose of Loaf being their tenant at the building. the new Loaf HQ will be the first premises established as part of Everards’s ‘Project Artisan’ – an innovative scheme to purchase and then lease out buildings suitable for artisan food and drink businesses that need to expand, initiated by Everards after the success of their project to convert pubs for micro-breweries (Project Willam). Everards investment in the property means that Loaf can take on a bigger and more suitable premises than we otherwise could have done and we are very grateful that they came along when they did. We’re currently waiting on planning permission for the conversion of the premises, and there will then be 2 months of building work to complete. This means we are hoping to be in the new place by late March or April.

What will the new place do?

Loaf has been running a community bakery and cookery school for two years now, and the new premises is primarily an expansion of those – there will be a 12-person cookery school on site (visible from the pavement!), as well as a bakery producing a range of real bread for Stirchley and the surrounding area. They’ll also be a retail space, which Loaf is giving to South Birmingham Food Co-operative to run as a joint space. They will be selling our bread in the shop, alongside store cupboard essentials, wholefoods, and eco cleaning products etc – all ethically sourced and fairly priced.

Bread Bonds

Everards are investing in the refurbishment of the property, which is an enormous help, and means we only need to buy the equipment we need and fit it into the property when we’re handed the keys. We need to raise around £25,000 to kit out the bakery and cookery school. In January we will be doing a ‘bread bond’ issue which we hope will raise the majority of that cash. We are looking for people interested in buying ‘loanstock’ – essentially a £1000 loan to Loaf for 3 years. During the 3 years, bread bond holders will get an interest rate on their loan, which instead of being paid in cash will be paid in the equivalent value in bread. At the end of three years, the bread bond holder get’s their £1000 back. If this is something that might interest you and you’d like to be included in the bond issue or would like more details please email me at tom@loafonline.co.uk – I won’t be answering emails until after the new year, but I’m guessing you’ll be pretty busy too, and i’ll be in touch asap after new year.

There’ll be plenty of updates next year as the project progresses, so keep your eyes peeled to the blog or twitter for all the latest. In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, Peace,

Tom.

And the winner is…

independent business logo - mid…Capeling & Co! A huge congratulations to Capeling & Co who have won by a trounce the inaugural Birmingham Independent Food Business of the Year award for 2010. Capeling & Co opened on the trendy York Road in Kings Heath in November 2009, offering something truly unique on Birmingham’s food landscape. Capeling & Co not only offer a fine selection of handmade artisan cheeses from across the UK and Europe, as well as other hard-to-find deli ingredients, but they deliver it with passion and style too. So much passion that they’ll even have run-ins with the British Cheese Board to ensure South Birmingham is eating the best cheddar possible. Their little shop is becoming a haven for foodies because you simply can’t get most of the things they stock without traveling outside of Birmingham. I first visited a couple of weeks after they opened, and have been a regular there ever since as both customer and supplier. They had a great 2010, building slowly, educating the public, reinvesting in the shop, venturing out to markets and events, and sourcing great cheese throughout. They topped off 2010 with a fantastic Christmas and New Year, improving the Christmas cheeseboards of half of South Birmingham seemingly, including mine!

There’s only a handful of businesses in Birmingham that take as much care about their food sourcing as Capeling & Co, and the whole point of this competition is to celebrate those great food businesses and hopefully find out about new one’s that we’re not already aware of. I hope everyone’s enjoyed reading, nominating and voting. I’m personally very excited about what 2011 holds for Birmingham’s grassroots food scene, happy new year!

After taking out duplicate votes the final scores for the top three were:

1st – Capeling and Co – 45 votes

2nd – Kitchen Garden Cafe – 21 votes

3rd – Rossiters Organic Butchers- 14 votes

Stirchley Community Market Today

Stirchley Community Market LogoToday see’s the fifth Stirchley Community Market since its inauguration in July. We’ve moved the market indoors for the winter, although there is still some hot food happening outdoors, and it’s at the same venue, the Stirchley United Working Mens Club on Hazelwell Street, from 4-7.30pm. We’re doing bread at this months market and will be taking down about 75 loaves of various kinds. You can find details of the loaves and prices below:

White Tin – small £0.80

Malthouse Granary – small £1.10

Cotteridge Sourdough – large (800g) £3, small (400g) £1.80

Revolution Rye (100% rye topped with Pumpkin and Sunflower seeds) – small £1.80

Borodinsky Rye (100% rye with molasses, malt extract and caraway) – small £2

Ciabatta – small £1.50

‘The Stirchley’ (Crusty part-wholemeal potato loaf) – small £1

We normally sell out before the end so head down early to grab some!

Stirchley Community Market is Born!

Stirchley Community Market LogoLoaf, Stirchley Happenings, South Birmingham Food Co-op and Birmingham Town Centre Partnerships are proud to bring you Stirchley’s first ever community market in the summer of 2010.

Stirchley Community Market, which launches on Tuesday the 27th July with it’s first market outside Stirchley United Working Mens Club on the Pershore Road from 4-8pm, will feature stalls selling wholefoods, bread, hot curry, wood-fired pizza, artisan preserves, cupcakes, local fruit and vegetables, and local arts and crafts. The market will give the local community, as well as commuters on their way home from work, an opportunity to find out what Stirchley has to offer, meet some excellent food producers and craft makers from within Birmingham, and pick up some tasty groceries for their weekly shop.

Loaf will be there selling wood-fired pizza’s straight out of our mobile pizza oven, and artisan bread.

The market has a dedicated wordpress blog, which will be updated with stall holder info and other details as the first market approaches – check it out at stirchleycommunitymarket.wordpress.com

Free Your Food!

There’s great news for families in the Selly Park area of South Birmingham, who now have access to a community food cooperative, and can buy all their essential store cupboard items communally, getting a cheaper price and bypassing the supermarkets. The South Birmingham Food Coop has been up and running since January 2010, and stock wholefoods and store cupboard items as well as environmentally friendly household products. Nancy from the food coop says:

Currently we order on an adhoc basis according to members’ demands from Suma (www.suma.coop), a cooperative wholesaler based in Tadcaster. We are run for and by our members on a not for profit basis with the aim of providing affordable, quality and healthy food to our communities. In the future we hope to become an outlet for local producers and stock fresh produce too. If you would like to join and take control of your food, get in touch; the bigger our membership, the more we can do.

South Birmingham Food Coop are based out of Enheduanna Housing Cooperative in Selly Park and can be contacted by calling Nancy on 07923405153 or at bhmfoodcoop@gmail.com.