Bread was the main course for Jesus’ last supper. Bread has existed since the beginning of time – for obvious reasons. Its cheap, easy to make and made the right way – some of the most delicious thing you can put in your mouth.
When we arrived in Kathmandu and realized that not only was good quality bread impossible to get – the lousy bread available was so expensive that we had to come up with a solution. Not only is breakfast the most important meal of the day. And after coffee – bread is the single most important item: and it has to be plentiful.
And more important – we want Tings to be a place where people get a chance to meet fellow travelers. And the only chance our guests get a chance to meet each other, share stories and/or connect is during breakfast. So together with our flowers, art & music the smell of bread from the kitchen create the ambiance we
You can get wheat flour almost all over the world – also in Nepal. So since I have made bread my whole life, it took me less than an hour to find decent local flour, instant yeast and teach our Nepalese & Tibetan kids (from a hundred years old rice culture) to make Northern European quality wheat bread.
My only two challenges were to re-design the bread recipe to the high altitude (the fermentation takes longer in > 1.800 m) and to show our local kids how the western style oven works.
They have now been doing it for more than 15 years 🙂
Farinhas Paulina Hortas is worth a visit – especially if you travel with kids. Read more here.
30 years ago when we visited Portugal for the first time you got good bread, made from local quality flour and made from regional recipes. But due to the competition from the supermarkets cheap bake-off-bread the local traditional bakers has been forced to close down. And the flour producers have been forced to lower the quality to meet the price point dictated by the big chains. The same development we had been through in Northern Europe 20 years before.
So the situation in Lisbon is more or less the same as it is in Kathmandu. The bread is bad and expensive.
And as crafted “bread wave” we know from Northern Europe has only just started (thanks to chains like Copenhagen Coffee Lab, Gleba and our own ‘indie’ Micro Padaria here in Graça) – it’s impossible to buy quality bread we insist serving for breakfast at prices our guests will pay for.
But opposite Nepal we could get good quality flour – but only after a year of stubborn research because those who made craft bread kept their supplier it as their own personal secret – which only provoked me to a more intensive research – after a few months I managed to get a photo of a bag of flour in a craft bakery – with name and contact details to Farinhas Paulina Hortas – a small mill 40 min drive from us. They have been our provider for more than 5 years now.
Besides our breakfast bread we also make Whole Grain Rye Bread and Focaccia and French Crepes.
Bread is really nothing special – especially not if you have been doing your own for a lifetime and every morning for the last 15 years.
So when the first morning a guest almost hugged me and asked for the recipe I flushed a little. When that happened again a few days later I thought someone was making fun of me…
After a couple of months and after having mailed 20 recipes to guests around the world I decided to make this blog version.
The bread we bake in the morning is started up the previous morning 24 hrs before. But the total hands-on-time is a maximum 15 minutes for one to three breads at a time.
Here is how we do it (I always make two breads – but the recipe is for one)
No more excuses for not baking bread!
It’s easy to make. It takes a maximum 15 minutes to make – while it bakes you can take a shower, do the dish washing or kiss your partner.
It’s super good and gets better the following days. Its excellent for toasts
It’s very cheap: Each bread is around 1 kg. The ingredients cost around 0.50 € pr. bread. You need an ordinary household oven and a Dutch Oven (we bought ours in IKEA for 50 €),
The Bonus: It’s very relaxing to make your own bread. But to see it grow, smell its delicious fragrance and see how happy your friends & family get when they eat it, is something very, very special.
Enjoy the fun and send me a photo of your own homemade wonders.
Thomas
