10 Years of Little Eye Sourdough Bakery

The Stats

In 10 Years of baking at home, for shops, markets and neighbourhood customers, I have made over 22,000 loaves, and we have taught over 450 people to make 4 types of sourdough bread.

We are currently making about loaves for about 40 local people to collect.

The Bread

We are still making around 14 different breads regularly.

Our regular light sourdough

Our regular wholewheat

 and some

chelsea buns

Our classes are starting up again in April, and if you are interested in early summer dates let us know on info@littleeye.org.uk - more info on the Bread Classes page of this site.

 We are still running our 'click and collect' bakery for local people weekly. Malcolm is an organiser of the West Kirby Farmers Market, and we have got that up and running again, outdoors, with November and December markets confirmed (www.westkirbyfarmersmarket.co.uk ).

In November we ran our "lockdown sourdough bread class", with a new set up to meet covid requirements. It went off well, and while not quite as co-operative as before, there was still plenty of spontaneous interaction and conversation. New courses are running on Feb 20th and April 10th.

Our loaves from last weeks click & collect:

A 100% rye with chopped grain; a wholewheat with oatmeal; a seeded light wheat mix; a white baguette

Little Eye Lockdown Bakery

We have got a weekly bake going, of about 40 loaves for neighbours and local self-isolated people.

And over the last 2 weeks have run Little Eye Live classes on Zoom for up to 15 people, starting their own sourdough and making a loaf. Some very good loaves produced, along with a few more varied - but all tasting good!

 

And we have donated 50p per loaf from our weekly lockdown bake (plus donations from shoppers), totalling almost £200 up to April 25th. We got a nice letter back the week before:

Hello Malcolm, Deborah and friends at Little Eye Sourdough Bakery

On behalf of Wirral Foodbank, I would like to thank you for your recent very kind donation of £130 to us. Thank you also for Gift Aiding the donation, enabling us to reclaim the tax paid on the money.

We are still extremely busy at the moment, as people of Wirral are surpassing themselves by donating food in supermarkets as they shop, and also by sending us cheques and making online donations. Our main worry was that we may start having less food available to us as I believe that the coronavirus has meant some foods will be in short supply. However we seem to be able to access most items at the moment. We are concerned about the fact that many churches have closed for the time being and they are one of our main donating groups. However, many church members, other individuals and local agencies have been finding alternative ways to donate to us, which has enabled us to carry on supporting local families as much as possible.

Our new group of volunteers has made a big difference to our volunteer force, with us having taken on over 100 new volunteers over the past 12 months. Many of these have been helping at the Wirral Food Hub, of which we are a part. We are sending them several tons of food each week that they then distribute to people in isolation.  We hope our fantastic volunteers continue to come along each week, despite their own concerns about becoming ill.

We just want to thank you particularly for your very generous support to us. It is very much appreciated.


Kindest regards

Liz Appleby
Office Manager and Volunteer Co-ordinator
Wirral Foodbank
Unit 14, Wirral Business Centre
Dock Road,
Birkenhead
CH41 1JW

Lockdown Baking Update

Our last bread class in March seems an age away now. But we will be back in late summer/autumn, so do let us know if you want to be alerted to future dates.

 In the meantime, Malcolm has been baking for a local lockdown bread club, made up of friends, neighbours and people who may be a little isolated. Our Easter fruit loaf was a hit, and we are making a small but varied range of breads each weekend. If you live locally in West Kirby, you may be able to join the club, depending on numbers, so do email.

We are also trialling on online Sourdough for Beginners event, this Easter week in April. If that works, we will offer that out more widely. Let us know if you are interested!

Pannetone Time!

As the days draw in, I find myself thinking about parkin, stollen, malt loaf and pannetone - all of which I make here from a sourdough starter.

This year I am renewing my pannetone recipe, using two trial recipes, over the next 24 hours. You'll see below the stages, from sponge, to dough, to bake

Here are the first steps;

1. A splodge of starter

2. +flour, eggs, butter, sugar and water

3. + water -A squelchy sponge

 Then leave for 12 hours. We'll see what it's like tonight.

The dough made up and in the baking case

The dough risen after 12 hours at room temperature

The one on the right is the same one shown above, so a good oven lift - what will it be like inside?

Hooray! a lovely sponge....

We had an eventful baking day on our Follow-up course on Saturday. The Follow-up course is always a bit of an adventure, as we try new recipes. On this occasion, the gas supply to the oven failed, and we had to work out a Plan B to get all the doughs to my house to bake off. Luckily, the cause was discovered by lunchtime and we managed to bake off our ciabatta, alpine rye, deli white with rye and dill, and a spiced fruit loaf. It brought out the best in us!

"Thank you for a thoroughly enjoyable day.

As we were clearing up I said ‘Somebody’s left their recipes on this windowsill’ only to get home and find out it was me.

Would you be so kind as to email today’s recipes, please?

I will have to guess what to do with the fruited bread if you don’t!

In the midst of potential chaos you exuded a feeling of calm and relaxed authority which was much appreciated by us all.

The ciabatta was excellent.

Thank you again.

Best wishes,

Colin"

"Been upskilling my bread-making @littleeyebread  Superb day, excellent tuition from Malcolm, great company and a batch of bread to take home - what's not to like " Olwen

At Little Eye, we want to help bakers  get things right at home, not just on the course, so we help make small changes on request, to follow up the courses. Carolyn asked for help with a slippery dough recipe after our last class in November 2018.

"Really pleased with loaf today with adjustments as below, thanks very much for your help"

Carolyn