Bread is an essential, versatile ingredient for home cooks and professional chefs alike. It acts as a vessel for sandwiches and a dipping agent for delicious sauces; it can add texture to a salad or stand alone as a meal (with the right spread, of course).
Skip the commercial bread brands from big-box grocers and opt for a locally baked loaf that’s fresher, tastier and healthier.
Making bread is no quick process. It’s a labor of love, requiring time and effort. Brandon McDaniel, owner of Johns Island’s Brandon’s Bread said making bread at home fell out of favor when mass production took off during the Industrial Revolution.
But McDaniel, and others around Charleston, like Brown’s Court Bakery and Welton’s Tiny Bakeshop, have kept the art alive with fresh, handmade breads to break at home with friends and family.
Brown’s Court Bakery is coming up on 10 years slinging loaves to both restaurants and everyday customers. But businesses like Welton’s, which opened on King Street last year and Brandon’s Bread, which can be found at Sea Island Farmers Market on Saturdays, are two newer bakers on the scene, providing Charlestonians even more bread options.
“The easiest place for you to get your bread is gonna be the same place that you’re buying your veggies and your meat or whatever else,” said David Schnell, owner of Brown’s Court Bakery. “But, I think the biggest thing that’s going to differentiate our product and other [local bakers’ products], as opposed to some of the store brands, is just the flavor.”
At its core, bread is just flour, water, salt and yeast. But commercial brands add preservatives and dough conditioners, according to Zachary Welton, co-owner of Welton’s Tiny Bakeshop, which affects the flavor of the loaves.
“When I first took an artisan breads class in school, the instructor said the first time we made bread, ‘All right, this is gonna be the best worst bread you’ve ever made,’” McDaniel said. “Because even if it turns out kind of bad, it is still better than getting a store bought one.”
One of the key factors to baking delicious house-made bread is a much longer fermentation process, which, according to McDaniel, commercial brands cut short. Fermentation allows the bread to rise, forming tiny air pockets and developing the bread’s flavor. The longer it ferments, the more flavor the bread will have. Schnell, who’s been in the game for over a decade, stressed the importance of the long fermentation, which adds to the flavor of the bread.
“We try to do a long fermentation time and do the same processes that French bakers did back in the late 1800s to early 1900s,” he said. “A lot of our recipes, like our brioche recipe, are straight up French; it’s a ton of butter and a ton of milk. And, with our baguettes, there’s a long fermentation with a poolish starter and gets a 24-hour rest before the baguette has to be shaped the next morning.”
But using fresh ingredients is just as important as fermenting. While McDaniel uses grains from Carolina Ground in Hendersonville, North Carolina, he also incorporates products from local mills such as Edisto Island’s Marsh Hen Mill for its benne seeds and grits. Welton uses Anson Mills from Columbia, as well as area farmers and purveyors, including Spade and Clover Gardens.
“It’s definitely a lot easier and more cost efficient to buy from bigger brands,” McDaniel said. “But that shows in the bread. Representing a local ingredient can actually highlight the flavor of the bread.”
Those preservatives, dough conditioners and shorter fermentation processes in commercial breads not only affect flavor, but nutrition, too.
“It’s important to inform consumers about the benefits of using locally sourced products with better, more nutritious flours that make bread,” Welton said. “When you eat a piece of Wonder Bread, I feel like you can feel it in your stomach. But when you consume a really good sourdough that has a long fermentation, you don’t feel it as much.”
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