We look at a revolutionary flour that keeps toast warm for an hour and Ed Miliband’s winning bacon sandwich photo resurfaces in our tongue-in-cheek Stop the Week. 

A Brand New World? Maybe not

You might have heard that off-beat TV presenter and comedian Russell Brand opened a council estate café last week. You might not have heard much further – and there’s a reason for that.

British Baker has not yet ventured to the outer reaches of Hackney to see this phenomenon in the flesh, but luckily for us The Sun on Sunday saved us a job. The roving reporter found that The Trew Café lacked a menu, a kitchen, savoury food and was fast running out of cake. To top it off, the juicer, which promised to make £4 glasses of healthy trendy drinks, was broken.

Its problems don’t stop there as its customers were also said to be in short supply, despite the packed launch day. So – no menu, little food, no juice and no customers. What was there?

A shameless wall of Russell selfies, it seems. As long as his ego doesn’t take a hit. He looks pretty pleased with himself...

Oh, a saving grace! Apparently, the cakes, while in short supply, were “delicious”. Still, it may not be enough to give this mission the longevity Brand foresaw, if his grand opening statement was any indication of long-term plans: “We are going to create our own systems, our own federations, our own currencies, our own authorities. We have an opportunity to create something better and it will start with small enterprises such as this.”

We can but try.

Cold toast no more

April Fool’s jokes were out in force in the baking industry this week – we are a funny bunch. One of our favourites came from Dr Zak’s, the protein-rich bread brand. It claimed that Flair Loop, a Chinese technology and innovations company, has developed a bread flour that keeps toast warm for up to one hour – wouldn’t that be nice? The flour was used in a high-protein loaf by Dr Zak’s.

Speaking on behalf of Flair Loop Inc, Dr Opal Fir Lo, one of the founding partners of the business, said: “To see the fruits of our labour actually launched in a commercial loaf in the UK is an amazing feeling. No longer will we have to worry about eating our toast within five minutes before it goes cold. This is truly a revolutionary day for the bread industry and for Flair Loop.”

Dr Lo explained that the flour works through causing a chain reaction within the proteins when heated, causing them to vibrate.

Dr Zak’s managing director Ray Brilus said: ”Dr Zak’s likes to be at the forefront of innovation so when we heard that ThermoFlour was available in the UK, we jumped at the chance to trial this amazing product. Two months on and we are using this flour in our lead product, the Dr Zak’s High Protein bread. I can tell you categorically that toast will never be the same again. My breakfast sat on the table for 25 minutes this morning and the toast was still piping hot. Truly amazing technology.”

THAT bacon sandwich

Who remembers THAT photo? The one of Labour’s esteemed leader eating a bacon sandwich in a manner and with an expression that can only be described as #awkward: see below.

Well, if that were us we’d do our best to ignore the fact it went virtually viral, and put it behind us - not Ed. As he gears up for another general election – and let’s hammer home the point that every vote counts – he insists on bringing up that fated day of bread and bacon consumption.

Like in a speech to party members in July, and in a speech in January, and last week’s Channel 4/Sky News pre-election debate – twice. First he joked about the moment when asked about Cameron during an audience Q&A. “I don’t know if we’d have a pint. We’d share a bacon sandwich or whatever."

And then he went for it again, saying of Cameron: “I’m not going to win a contest for who looks best eating a bacon sandwich, I think we can all agree about that.”

British Baker can take two positives out of this: one - he possesses self-awareness; and two - he is eating bread, unlike David Cameron (see our #WeLoveBread campaign).

This picture of the audience also neatly sums up the reaction on Twitter. A picture paints 1,000 words...