The locally owned and run bakery in the village, Jack Cooper, has been sold to a much larger business J G Ross with dire consequences for the quality of the baked goods.
The range of cakes and “fancy pieces” has shrunk, the range of breads has shrunk and the range of pies has shrunk.
On top of that, the quality has plummeted (faux cream, bleuch), while all the stock is now made elsewhere and brought here by van. It was baked on site.
In some ways it’s not a major problem for us as we make our own bread, breadrolls and pies, but it has wiped out our major weekly treat.
On her way back from taking the Big Lad swimming on a Saturday, the Other Half would collect a couple of apple turnovers or small chocolate cakes for us, while giving the boys a choice of fancies.
This would then be our morning or afternoon tea.
What made it a notable treat wasn’t so much that we’d bought some cakes, but that I could spend the morning working my bum off around the croft without having to take time out to prepare a snack myself.
It probably doesn’t sound like much, but when you spend every other day of the week baking and cooking, then a bought-in treat of a Saturday morning is top-notch luxury — especially when the cakes and fancies were superb.
But no longer. When the OH bought our morning tea last Saturday, the first time we’d bought from the shop since the change of ownershop, we were a little perturbed to discover uniformly made turnovers and iced cakes.
We warily peeped inside them, to discover faux cream, tiny pieces of cubed apple and lots of thin, greasy sauce. (We’re used to slightly rough and ready looking turnovers with real cream, big chunks of apple and just enough thick, sticky sauce to hold it together,)
Worse was to come. The taste was vile and all of us, boys included, ended up throwing the cakes in the bin.
We could have done much, much better at the supermarket.
Of course, that now leaves me with a problem — what to make for morning tea on Satudays?
I decided to revisit my experimental sticky bun recipe and fine tune it a little more.
Ingredients
- 1lb strong white bread flour
- 4oz softened butter
- 1/2 pint warm milk
- 3oz caster sugar
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 1oz yeast
- 4oz mixed dried fruit
- 1 small egg, beaten
- 2tbsp caster sugar, ground into powder
Method
- Sift the flour into a large basin.
- Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Whisk the warm milk, sugar and yeast together until thoroughly mixed. Leave to stand for 10 minutes and gently beat again.
- Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in most of the liquid.
- Work together to make a smooth, elastic dough. If the mixture is too dry, add a little more liquid at a time. (Try to avoid pouring in to much liquid and then adding more flour.)
- Turn the dough out on to a floured surface and knead well.
- Place the dough in a greased basin, sprinkle with flour, cover with a clean cloth and allow to rise in a warm place for about two hours (until the dough has doubled in size).
- Turn the dough out on to a floured surface and knock it down into a large circle. Place the dried fruit in the centre of the dough, then fold the edges in over it and knead well.
- Place the dough in a greased basin again, sprinkle with flour, cover with a clean cloth and all to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.
- Turn the dough out on to a floured surface and quickly knock it down, then knead it into a long, uniform sausage shape. Slice the sausage of dough into 12 slices of equal thickness.
Shape the slices into large, round buns and place on a greased baking tray, with about a quarter of an inch between each bun.- Prove the buns in a warm place for about 15 minutes. While the buns are proving, preheat the oven to 220C.
- Brush the buns generously with the beaten egg and dust with the powdered sugar.
- Bake the buns for 15 minutes at 220C, then lower the temperature to 200C and bake for a further 10 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool — if you can!
NOTE: This recipe is a work in progress so I can’t guarantee an exact, repeatable result. The flour/liquid ratio is not quite right yet, but making it with two eggs doesn’t give the richness I’m looking for. Also, a little cinnamon or a little extra sugar added at the same time as the fruit might give the buns extra oomph.
Oh, and with all that kneading don’t be surprised if your assistant runs out of puff…
I would run off in huff too if my ‘favourite’ from the shop was no longer available!
I know exactly what you mean about the odd treat when you do all the cooking every day of the week. So as tonight was the monthly shop, we pigged out on all those things we don’t normally have.
Presumably the baker him/herself is still in town? Maybe they’re taking on private commissions? When the fish shop in my small town closed, the fish shop owner just started doing business out the back door of his house. It was hilarious the night we met the sheriff coming out with a pan of illegal trout casserole!
So many American towns have no local bakery left. It’s all supermarket stuff and most of that is synthetic, with things such as ‘creme’ fillings — forbidden by law to say ‘cream’ when it’s not present. It’s a shame, really. I feel bad for children who never get to taste an honest loaf of bread…or sticky buns. Good for you!
Your buns sound lovely, I’m sure with experimentation you will get the perfect recipe. On the days when you don’t have time why don’t you have scones instead? You can do some great variations in flavours with little effort. I often keep a bag of home made mixture in the fridge, waiting for me to add the eggs and milk and throw them into the oven. You could still treat yourself to the carton of cream to give yourself the feeling of luxury.
How frustrating! I have always wanted to live near a town that had specialized shops. A bakery, a green grocer, a fish shop, a butcher, etc. so everyone sold what they were experts in. Instead we get “super markets”, which are super only in size, where the employee turn over is high and rather than them being experts, they are working with a couple days “training”. Mostly, it seems in how to seem like you are answering a question that you have to actual answer to…
I am quite lucky in baked goods though. We have several cafes in our small town (we have 5 colleges in the area and they like their caffeine) and they all make their own pastries from scratch and they are quite amazing, if pricey. We also have two full-on bakeries in town - one is very european style and also has wonderful pastries and the other is all-sourdough and baked in woodfired cob oven. Both are delicious and the sourdough bakery also makes a version with wheat grown a few towns away (there is a lot of experimenting with eating locally here).
So in the land of bread and pastries I am blessed!
I also make scones, drop-scones, tea cakes, spotted soda bread, fruit cakes, fairy cakes, apple pies, and more. But it’s nice to have a sticky bun now and again.
I’m not sure what’s happened to the bakers. The business was owned and run by three people, and in the aftermath of the sale all sorts of rumours have reached my ears. It’s a small village so I think I’ll leave it there!
One of the reasons we bought the croft was that it was close to a proper, old-fashioned village with a railway station, post office, chemist-newsagent-toyshop, butcher, corner store, bakery, blacksmith, agricultural mechanic, independent garage with fuel pumps, a pair of automotive mechanics and a tractor dealership. All the businesses were locally owned.
Unfortunately, the agricultural mechanic has retired, the corner shop was sold to a chain, and the bakery has now been sold to a chain. The changes at the shop are particularly bad as it’s become much more of a “business”, focusing on high margin, fast turnover lines with a reduced range of stock. It forces us to use the supermarket 20 minutes away much, much more.
I can’t understand the modern business belief that it’s better to sell a line out and have nothing on the shelf, than to always have some of everything in stock. if it’s not there, I can’t buy it.
I also noticed last I was up that the village is also expanding with larger and larger home being built.
It would seem that if you have to go to the supermarket, so will others, how much longer will this bakers stay in business? If people are going to the supermarket for other stuff, they won’t bother to make a seperate trip to a baker which isn’t very good, will they?
We’re not using the supermarket to buy cakes, buns and the like. I was saying that we’d probably find better at the supermarket than what is now stocked by the bakery. I don’t much like supermarket baked goods either, which I why I’m going to have to do even more baking now.
How do I apply to get adopted, please? YUM.
We also lost our family bakery here last year, and now there are no decent scones or brioche to be had.
There’s a waiting list for some reason…