Good bread is four ingredients and a great deal of time: flour, water, salt and a starter we have fed every day for nine years, given a day and a half to turn into a loaf.
Most bread in the city skips the time. It is raised in two hours with commercial yeast and improvers, softened to last a week in its bag, and tastes of very little.
Brunelle works the other way. Every loaf is mixed the day before and baked before dawn, in an oven small enough that the baker who shapes it also takes it out.
- I
Time does the work
Thirty-six hours from mixing to the oven. The long ferment builds the flavour and the crust, and makes the bread easier to digest.
- II
Four ingredients, no improvers
Flour, water, salt and starter. Real French butter in the croissants, never margarine. The ingredient list fits on the bag.
- III
Baked that morning
Everything on the counter came out of the oven that day. What is left at closing goes to the community kitchen down the soi.
- IV
Small on purpose
One oven, a limited number of loaves each day, so each one gets the attention it needs.
Brunelle Boulangerie · Bangkok