Lovingly Artisan loaf named Speciality Bread Product of the Year

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Speciality Bread Product of the Year champions beautiful loaves that delight and inspire consumers.

Winner: Malted Barley Sourdough Tin, Lovingly Artisan

Described as a household favourite, the Malted Barley Sourdough Tin from Lovingly Artisan reflects the bakery’s values while meeting the diverse needs of its customer base.

The Cumbria-based bakery’s core objective while developing this loaf was that it needed to be diverse and scalable, while dovetailing into all the general bakery standards and procedures.

“This is about placing the humble loaf back in the centre of the family table,” said the bakery.

“We blend ancient bakery methods with a new way of thinking, harmonizing handcrafted artisan with the modern-day production approach. Our aim is to create a multi-purposeful loaf, that’s delicious and easy to eat, and can be enjoyed by a diverse audience.”

The Malted Barley Tin combines wheat flour, barley, rye, semolina wheat and salt, and uses Matthews Cotswold Flour, Gilchesters Organics flours and Warminster maltings. The latter provided the inspiration for the loaf as the taste, texture and heritage were irresistible to the artisan baker.

Each loaf takes four days to make starting with a refresh of the mother culture, followed by cooking the barley into a porridge to “enhance the flavour and chocolatey notes of the loaf”. The porridge is incorporated during the folding and stretching of the dough which is then divided, pre-shaped and left to rest before being chilled ahead of baking the next day.

The result of this process is a loaf that is both delicious and homely, said the judges, who were also full of praise for its great shape and unique, moreish taste.

Finalist: Six Seed Sourdough, Bakehouse at Cakesmiths

The panel of judges said this loaf had great seed coverage and was baked beautifully – they knew it would taste great the second they sliced it. They also commented on how the umami flavours from the seeds really complemented the loaf’s punchy but delicious sourdough notes.

The loaf was crafted by Bakehouse at Cakesmiths using Canadian wheat, spelt, and rye flours alongside six types of seeds – pumpkin, sunflower, millet, poppy, brown flax and golden linseed.

Finalist: Toasted Sesame Seed Tiger Sourdough, Boys Bakery

All the flours in this loaf, made by Boys Bakery of Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, come from Shipton Mill in Tetbury. It is combined with a mouth-watering array of other ingredients including rice flour, toasted sesame seed, sesame oil and Tubby Tom’s Tiger Salt – a mix of Korean chilli flakes, smoked paprika, fennels seeds, Szechuan peppercorn and cinnamon.

The loaf takes 24 hours to make and uses a sourdough culture from a 200-year-old bakery on the island of Ischia near Naples. The judges said this loaf was “the bees’ knees”, adding that it had an enticing smoky aroma, beautiful texture, was perfectly balanced with a complex but delicious taste.