Our Daily Bread -Spring 2014
by: Kimberly Nolan
photography by: Nicole Harnishfeger
Standing ALONE in the middle moors, pastry chef BEN WOODBURY says a short PRAYER. Under the early-evening sky, while the air is still warm, he begins the process of collecting WILD YEAST – with gratitude.
“I try to hold onto the truth that so many powerful, necessary and transformative things are given to us freely,” Woodbury said.
The shelves at Something Natural in the sum- mertime are stocked with Portuguese bread, pumpernickel, rye, challah, oatmeal and six-grain bread, and are sold year-round at Stop & Shop.
Inside Woodbury’s 12-quart bucket is a simple wet batter concoction. He waits as four quarts of flour and water attract wild yeast that begins the alchemy of baking bread.
The wild yeast yields flavor characteristics specific to Woodbury’s WICKED ISLAND BAKERY bread.
“People are really tasting the wild yeast in the French bread we make because flour, water, salt and yeast are the only ingredients in there,” Woodbury said.
The Nantucket Loaf, Portuguese bread, Struan, French bread and a changing menu of specialty breads are all baked inside a hearth oven at Wicked Island Bakery on Orange Street.
“The bread is baked on the floor of the oven and everything gets steamed out through the crust,” Woodbury said.
The Nantucket Loaf is modeled off of Cornell bread, developed at Cornell University. Cornell bread is a mellow white bread consisting of powdered milk, wheat germ and organic soy flour. “The specific ratio of ingredients boosts the amount of usable protein,” Woodbury said. “Our Nantucket Loaf is a two-pound Cornell loaf.”
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