July 2011

I have been hearing a lot about the Oxford Bread Group recently. I wish that I lived a little nearer Oxford so I could participate in some way in this wonderful venture. Lets hope that they prosper and more of this wonderful heritage grain becomes available for us all to bake with. Here is a quote from their website, to find out more please click on the link above. Sept 2013 Edit: The Oxford Bread Group has now ended so I have removed the link as it doesn’t go anywhere.

“The Oxford Bread Group (OBG) …. grew out of a research project undertaken by archaeo-botanist John Letts at the University of Reading over a period of 10 years. John collected thousands of 600-year-old wheat specimens that had been perfectly preserved within the smoke-blackened base coats of medieval thatched cottages. From these specimens he was able to reconstruct how medieval cereals were grown and used for thatching and to make bread, beer and gruel. He gradually bulked up the grain from over 250 ancient varieties on organic farms in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and created a hardy, high yielding and genetically diverse crop that produced good quality bread grain as well as thatching straw.”  

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Andrew Auld’s bakery  the loaf at Crich’s bakes his version of this multi seeded bread recipe regularly.

  The bread list there is constantly evolving. I wouldn’t need to bake if we had a bakery like that one round the corner!

Andrew Auld’s seeded loaves: Photo by permission