La Baguette wood fire bakery and cafe

Most bakers use a convection oven to make bread but for Boetie Burger, owner of La Baguette wood fire bakery and cafe in Mossel Bay, the tool of his trade is a wood-fired brick oven.

Boetie's passion is making bread as was done in bygone eras. His progression has been from baking bread in a cast iron coal pot over a fire for his family; to the bakery section of a Spar Supermarket in Fish Hoek where he worked for five years, to opening a small bakery (Doughy's) in Mossel Bay in 1999. He also spent 21 years at Dairy Maid Nestle making ice-cream, but that is another story.

In 2005 Boetie decided that he wanted a break from conventional baking. At this point he had already made enquiries about opening a coffee shop in the new mall that was being built, so he sold the bakery and made contact with an American author of a book he admired entitled The Bread Builders - Health Loaves and Masonry Ovens; and before he and his wife, Susie, knew it, they were winging their way to San Francisco to learn how to build a wood-fired brick oven and how to bake naturally fermented health bread in it.

Plans in hand they returned to South Africa to build their own wood-fired brick oven at their new premises and around which the coffee shop (managed by his daughter Lohamie) and bakery has been developed.

The oven is a solid structure built with fire bricks. It has three different layers of insulation (bricks, concrete and vermiculite) and is fired up at about 5am each morning using wood ('bokom'). Only once the temperature has built up to 300 degrees Celcius (it takes about three hours) will Boetie begin baking his bread. The oven's size is big enough to accommodate 25 loaves at one time (1250g) and Boetie makes about 100 loaves a day of which there are 10 varieties of bread including 100% rye bread for those that are wheat intolerant. He also bakes rolls in the oven while all other bakery goods are made in a normal convection oven.

Does his bread flop? Boetie laughs and says he "always gets another chance tomorrow morning" but the most difficult thing is that you cannot turn a knob to regulate the temperature. Rather he achieves an even temperature through trial and error and fortunately bread can tolerate a lot of heat if it doesn't contain sugar.

The secret of his success is the sour dough recipe made up of baker's salt, flour, purified water and wild yeast which he cultivates himself. Each and every loaf is shaped by hand and the 30 minute baking time is the very end of an 18 hour rising and kneading process.

With such attention to detail it is no surprise that unless the bread is eaten quickly it has a 10 day shelf life before deteriorating, the high heat gives the bread a thick crust so it stays soft on the inside, and there are health benefits: the recipe is preservative free and sugar-free.

Boetie says that most people don't pay much attention to the quality of the bread they eat but they should be aware of what they are eating when they buy bread from a supermarket.

For one thing it has a crust that is a uniform brownish tan, aided by sugar to make it brown easily at a relatively low temperature. It is also thin and inside the loaf, the crumb is made from high protein flour that has a high water content which makes the crumb spongy. The dough is also fortified by sweetners, and amylase (an enzyme that converts starch to sugar and produces dextrins, short chains of sugar that hold on to water in the dough). In addition the flour is bleached with oxidising compounds then over-mixed to incorporate excess oxygen to further bleach the dough; and to make the flour proteins more manageable allowing for an increase in the speed of mixing. It smells moist, sweet, flat, vaguely chemical (from commercial yeast); the crust is rubbery and it does not really taste of wheat or of acid, rather mainly sugar and yeast. Consequently there is little fibre or ash (minerals) and the bread offers little nutritional value.

Naturally fermented hearth bread on the other hand, has a thick crust which reflects three different colours giving it a rustic, irregular appearance. The inner crust represents a transition from the crust to the crumb and is a starch that was first heavy gelatinised as a result of soaking up water then drying out but keeping it moist as it bakes. The fully fermented dough also contains enough acid and other fermentation products to help "set" the starch and help it darken. Naturally fermented bread smells of wheat; and it will feel dry, firm and springy and the taste is a little acid and the crust a little bitter. Nutritionally this bread exercises your digestive system. The yeast and bacteria from the sour leaven provides B vitamins and biotin (important if you follow a vegan diet containing no animal products).; If the bread contains whole grain flour, the soluble and insoluble fibre in the bran will help control the absorption of fats and cholesterol and will reduce the rate at which sugars are absorbed after a meal.

Given the above sometimes it is worth paying just a little more, even if it means sitting down to enjoy a nice cup of coffee while breathing in the aroma of freshly baked bread!