Viva Brighton Issue #58 December 2017

WE TRY...
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Nordic baking
Self-improvement, with buns
I discovered the most delicious fact recently. There
are sourdough hotels at Swedish airports. There
the nation’s precious sourdough starters are fed and
nursed by suitably artisanal fermentation aficionados,
lest the bubbling brew be arrested in their
owner’s absence. This I found out one November
evening at the Nordic Baking workshop at Stoneham
Bakehouse: a thoroughly enjoyable two-and-ahalf
hours spent with its founder, Simon Cobb, and
four other budding bakers.
The evening starts with preparing the dough for
rye bread: a simple matter of mixing stoneground
white and wholegrain rye flour with yeast, salt
and warm water until it’s a lot like claggy, wet
cement. This, we are assured, is as it should be.
The dough is left to prove under a showercap for
a while before we roughly shape it with wet hands
and smooth it into 1lb tins. It proves a little longer
before being slid into the huge oven.
Next we start on a batch of cinnamon buns. This
dough requires the rubbing in of butter, and the
addition of an egg, a healthy dose of ground cardamom
and some sugar and, once kneaded and left to
prove (more showercaps), we get to the cinnamon
bit, forking together butter, brown sugar and cinnamon
in gratifying quantities. The wafting spices
induce a sensory, seasonal reverie.
It’s all set to one side and the table is cleared for
a tasty Scandinavian supper of rye bread topped
with beetroot, apple, fennel and horseradish, and a
sweet and earthy parsnip and apple soup. As we eat,
Simon tells us how he got into baking on doctor’s
orders. Advised to learn something new to assist
with his recovery from a breakdown, he took a
breadmaking course at the Community Kitchen in
Lewes and, after stints baking at various locations,
set up the community bakehouse on Stoneham
Road. Now these Tuesday workshops help to fund
those that he offers on a Wednesday, to people with
their own mental health challenges, the elderly
and the isolated. Then he opens the bakery on the
weekend to supply Poets Corner with delicious
bread, buns and seasonal treats. It’s a wonderfully
virtuous circle.
Supper finished, we roll out our proved, spiced
dough, applying generous amounts of the cinnamon
butter before folding and rolling again. Then
dough is divided, twisted and knotted into individual
buns that receive an egg wash and a scattering
of sugar nibs before being swallowed up by the
industrial oven.
Soon the rye loaves are ready and Simon taps them
out. They’re risen, with satisfyingly cracked tops,
and are soon followed by the buns, whose sugary
innards have spread onto the parchment. They’ve
not even begun to cool before I’m planning my
next visit – maybe for the olive oil breads or the hot
cross buns workshop – and wondering if it would
be very greedy to eat all eight buns myself… LL
Bread making for beginners: 4 hours, £50. Nordic
Baking, etc: 21/2 hours, £25. Vouchers are available.
2 Stoneham Road, stonehambakehouse.org.uk
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