Here’s a picture of a gift basket we do that is similar in appearance to our Mother’s Day Basket.  But the Mother’s Day Basket is much sweeter!

Update:  The baskets are sold out for this year.  The story is kind of nice though.

When Cindy and I started our family, one of the things I learned early on was there was no way I would ever be allowed to take Cindy to a Mother’s Day brunch.  Cindy just plain refused to head off to a crowded, hot restaurant on ‘her’ day.  So for years now I would look for something interesting and unique when Mother’s Day shopping.  And if her Mother’s Day gift was somehow shareable, so much the better!

Now that we have Orange Boot Bakery, Cindy’s paying special attention to Mother’s Day. It’s her chance to design a Mother’s Day gift that she’d love to receive herself.  This year she’s designed a Mother’s Day Gift Basket that reflects the food she loves and the food she loves to share.

She wanted something we don’t usually make at the bakery, so the basket would be truly special.

She wanted a combination of bread and sweets, because she likes both.  

She wanted something with real fruit.   Something rich and decadent   And something with a LOT of chocolate, because who doesn’t love chocolate?

And she wanted a gift basket with lots of neat things inside, so it can be shared.  (yay!)

Each Orange Boot Mother’s Day Gift Basket is $35, and contains:

• One mini Potato Cheddar Chive Torpedo,  one of Cindy’s favourite loaves;
• Four Nicer Buns*, extra buttery fancy white buns;
• Four Hand Made Apple Turnovers, made from home made pastry and real apples;
• Two Strawberry Whoopie Pies, using strawberries from this weekend’s Strawberry Fair at St. Paul’s Church;
• Two Hazelnut Linzer Cookies, delightful crispy cookies filled with seedless raspberry jam;
• Two Black Forest Cookies, two types of chocolate and amazing dried BC cherries.

You can order your baskets in person at the bakery, by calling us at (306) 584-2668 or by filling in the form below.  

UPDATE:  The baskets are all sold out.  Sorry.

PICK UP DATE: Baskets are available for pickup on Saturday May 11 at 10AM.

*Now, you may ask yourself, why do we call them “Nicer Buns”?  Good question!  We had a lady call us a few months ago asking for some buns for a luncheon she was organizing.  But she didn’t want ordinary buns — she wanted “nicer buns.”  So we said OK and proceeded to make a slightly richer white buns that we shaped in a knot and egg washed before baking.  The lady was delighted.  We’ve called them Nicer Bun ever since.  :)

Ever since we opened on Gordon Road people have asked me if we bake anything with sprouted grains.  Usually they ask because of the health benefits, but I also know that sprouted grains bring amazing colour and flavour to bread.  I am so glad that I finally get to say Yes, especially with this amazing, fruity, nutty, delicious loaf.

Our Power Bread is inspired by a forumla shared with me by Didier Rosada in San Francisco back in 2008 and incorporates two techniques that I’ve been wanting to try at Orange Boot since we opened:  sprouting grains and extra long fermentation.

We start with sprouting the grains.  Our miller, Bob Balfour, sent over a large bag of organic wheat berries that we soak in water for four days until they start to sprout.  Then the grain is washed and ground up into a wet, sticky glump in our food processor.   The sprouted grains replace 40% of the flour that we use in making the Power Bread.

After the dough is mixed and we add a big batch of raisins, toasted walnuts and toasted almonds to the dough, we get to the extra long fermentation part of the story.  Our regular bread ferments for a long time to improve the flavour, texture and keeping qualities of the final loaf; typically around 3-4 hours after the final dough is mixed (part of the dough ferments for up to 18 hours, but that’s another story.) The final dough of our Power Bread ferments very slowly, for between 19-22 hours, before baking.

The sprouted grain and the extra long fermentation combine to bring an intensity of colour and flavour to the final loaf that’s way beyond anything you’ve ever tried.  What’s happening?  In simple terms, the act of soaking and sprouting the grains wakes up the enzymes in the grain to amazing levels.  They are on a mission to break down the starch in the wheat into sugars to “feed” the wheat germ as it transforms into a plant.  So the sprouted grains have slightly less starch, slightly more vitamins and minerals, and more sugars that will give you a nice dark crust when baked.  And by fermenting the bread for an extra long time, the enzymes in the sprouted grains and the flour have more time to work their magic.

Of course, a bread this special needs to look special too.  Teisha made some wild Lightning Bolt stencils so you know there’s something interesting going on inside your loaf.  The lightning bolt represents the crazy energy of the sprouted grains, the energy you’ll get from eating them (and the nuts, and the raisins — it’s like breakfast in every slice!) and the energy we put in to making them for you.  Shazam!

Power Bread is available at the bakery every day, starting Tuesday April 30, throughout the month of May. It’s a perfect fit as you get outside, get active and enjoy Spring.

Prairie Dog magazine is my “go to” resource for finding out what’s new and interesting in the Regina food scene.  This month they are once again running their “Best in Food” reader poll to determine the best pubs, eateries, diners and, yes, bakeries.

We’ve been honoured to be named “Regina’s Best Bakery” the past two years and it would be huge for us to win again this year.

Why?  Because it’s a Reader Poll.  That means when Orange Boot wins Best Of something in the Prairie Dog, it’s a legitimate endorsement, not a paid for ‘advertorial’.

It means you, our True Fans, think we’re doing OK. That you’re rooting for us.  That you want us to succeed.

That means a lot to me.

It’s also important that Bootniks vote in lots of categories, because it helps both of us.  You get a chance to win $500 in gift certificates from the Prairie Dog, and I get to learn what you think is the best burger, and the best coffee shop, and the best brew pub. I mean, I’m not at the bakery all the time — I need to know where to go to eat!

So please vote quick.  Don’t wait.  Don’t forget.  And I hope you win the prize, too.

Growing up in Regina means you have to manage expectations, but things are changing. I never thought I’d see a Grey Cup game in the Queen City and we’re hosting for the third time this year.  And I never, ever thought Regina would host the Juno Awards but here they are, this week, at the Agridome.  Wow. What a time we live in.

I don’t have tickets to the big show, but I’m holding out hope that Gordon Downie or Bruce Cockburn or Kathleen Edwards or Leonard Cohen will be craving a good baguette this week and someone will mention Orange Boot and they’ll call us and I’ll bring them baguettes and they’ll love it and Leonard will say they’re better than in Paris and Bruce will tell about the time he made flatbreads in a rocket oven while in the Ecuador rainforest and Kathleen will be all awesome and Gord will say something I don’t really understand but I’ll think it’s really deep and then they’ll sign my apron and, and…oh man, I gotta sit down.

Whether or not you are going to the Big Shue, you are an Orange Boot Bootnik, so right there you deserve The Good Stuff.  Here’s an easy way to make some eats that rival the best Back Stage Buffet.

Open Face B-B-BLT’s

(Inspired by Leslie Mackie of Macrina Bakery in Seattle)

You will need:

• a wicked good baguette
• your favourite thick sliced bacon, like from Butcher Boy meats or your uncle’s smokehouse
• some organic baby greens
• 2-3 roma tomatoes, sliced
• 6-10 fresh basil leaves
• garlic aioli (see below)

Here’s what you do:

1. Make the aioli by whisking together 2 egg yolks, 1 tsp chopped garlic, 1 tbsp dijon mustard.  Then slowly add 1 cup olive oil, whisking all the while, until you have a creamy, spreadable mayo-like sauce.

2. Fry the bacon and drain.  Keep it warm.

3.  Cut the baguette on the bias into 1cm slices.  If you like, put the slices on a pan and bake at 375F for 10 minutes or until toasty.

4.  Build your BLT’s thusly:

• spread the aioli on the bread
• add a slice of bacon
• add a slice of tomato
• add some salt and pepper, then a basil leaf
• hide the basil with salad greens
• finish with a nice piece of lettuce to act as the ‘top’ of your open face sandwich.

Eat ‘em up!  Marvel at what that hint of garlic and hidden basil leaf does to the overall flavour.  And enjoy the show!

Photo by cdrummbks

Our special loaf for April features Semolina flour.  Semolina is a hard, golden, high protein flour made from durum wheat.

Semolina has a special place in my heart because durum was the wheat my grandfather grew on his farm south of Moose Jaw.  When I was a boy I loved those amazing picnics in the field during harvest season. I’d sit with my dad and grandpa and eat sandwiches that my mom and grandma made and sip coffee from dad’s thermos.  Sometimes we’d even have fried chicken — what a treat!

The durum fields were also where I learned to drive for the first time.  When I was 13 or 14 I would read comics in the old grain truck until it was time to unload durum from the combine. Boy did I ever get in trouble if I started daydreaming and miss the signal to drive to the combine!

Semolina flour is also grown in quantity in southern Italy.  Mainly for pasta but also for bread.  So our April Bread of the Month has an Italian influence as well.

The Semolina Loaf

Of all the bread I made back in my brick oven days, this was Cindy’s favourite.  A flavourful, golden loaf in the traditional “S” shape.We use some of our wild yeast levain in the dough to provide depth of flavour.  We also use a small amount of butter in this loaf; butter and semolina pair well and a slice will also brown very well in the toaster.

The Semolina Loaf is shaped into an S and then dipped in sesame seeds — after the seeds toast in the oven they add yet another boost of flavour to the bread.

The Sesame Flame

The Sesame Flame is a crazy idea from my most amazing teacher.  Didier Rosada taught my this loaf in San Francisco in 2008 but I needed my current oven to make it worthwhile to bake it.

The Flame is a semolina baguette that is full of sesame seeds inside and also dipped in sesame seeds.  Just before baking, we split the baguette and shape into a wild lick of ‘flame’.  The end result is a huge, ridiculous sesame stick that is so big it’s almost impossible to put in a bag.  But the taste is incredible – crispy, chewy, nutty and sesame-y.  Wow!

We like to tear it apart and either eat it as is or dip it in hummus, tzatziki, or whatever you have at hand.  The longest a Flame has lasted in my presence is 15 minutes, so don’t turn your back on it if you have friends over.

Please Note:  We’re struggling a bit to fit the Semolina “Breads of the Month” loaves in our schedule.  They available just after 10AM every day in April.

Allison and her young son Logan love coming to the bakery. We’re always glad to see them because Logan is a really cute little fella and Allison loves to talk bread.

Allison is deeply interested in ingredients because Logan’s having some issues and can only have a tiny bit of sodium in his diet. Logan loves our Orange Boot Birdseed Loaf so Allison asked for a reduced salt or zero salt bread that he could eat without worry.

Can We Make Salt Free Bread?

I did some research and learned that in Italy, specifically in Tuscany, bakers often make their bread without any salt. We’ve also been making a low salt white bread for the Greek church. So we were hopeful we that we could help Logan out.

Teisha and I worked on a salt free Birdseed Loaf over the winter months. It’s a real challenge because of the important role salt plays in bread baking. The deeper we dug, the more interesting the role of salt became:

• Salt adds flavour and colour. This was easy to see. If you are used to having salt in your diet, a salt free loaf can taste very bland. And the final colour of the loaf can very from a pale cream colour to a dull brown — certainly not the deep, rich colour of our normal bread.
• Salt gives the dough strength. When you are used to mixing your bread a certain amount, it’s a big shock to shift to salt free bread. Our salt free loaf develops very, very quickly in the mixer. So quickly that we don’t dare take our eyes off the mixer lest we over mix the dough.
• Salt helps gluten develop. At the microscopic level, salt helps the gluten proteins develop longer chains. It’s those long protein chains that give the dough strength over time.

So we started testing. Mix very quickly. Ferment, Shape and Bake very quickly.

And the result? Bread! Maybe not the tastiest loaf in the world, but it was definitely a light loaf with good crust and crumb, with no added salt.

Can We Make Salt Free Bread Taste Good?

But boy oh boy, that taste sticks in your mind. How could we make this loaf taste a little more, well, better?

The bran in whole flour always has some interesting flavour notes, so we added whole wheat and whole rye flour to the mix.

And we’ve found that adding a variety of seeds and whole grains adds flavour, so sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, rolled oats and flax seeds found their way into the mixer.

Finally, we added our sourdough starter to the bread, to raise the acidity and add a complex flavour to the final loaf.

The resulting loaf is just like our Orange Boot Birdseed Bread but without any salt. Ok, it doesn’t taste exactly the same, but Logan loves it and that makes Allison happy. Makes us happy too.

Salt Free Birdseed Bread Available Via Special Order

Allison asked, we responded, now you can get some too. “Pane Toscana di Logan”, or you can call it “Salt Free Birdseed”, is available at the bakery via special order only

We can make this bread with the seed mix or without the seed mix, as you like. Give us a call at (306) 584-2668 and we’ll hook you up.

Please note that we can only make this bread on Tuesday thru Thursday. Minimum order is 6 loaves. We can slice it for you and have it ready for the freezer if you like.

This is Why We Get Up In The Morning

Allison and Logan’s story is exactly why Cindy and I opened Orange Boot Bakery.

We wanted to build a place for you to get great baking and be able to talk to your bakers and learn about what you eat.

We wanted a place where you could trust us to bake simple, real food using real, natural ingredients.

We’re not food scientists. We can’t accomodate every diet restriction that’s out there — we can’t make a gluten free & egg free & dairy free & soy free & fat free & nut free & sugar free muffin, for example — but we will certainly try to help where we can. I’m glad this one worked out.

Photo by ansik

Our mechanical bread slicer is on the fritz these days. I replaced the piston that pushes the loaf through the blades and replaced the blades too. 32 steel blades specifically designed to slice crusty artisan bread like we bake at Orange Boot Bakery.

It’s still not working the way I want, though. If I try to slice a loaf that hasn’t completely cooled and set up (ideally 2-3 hours after baking) the bread tries to move through the blades too quickly and gets squashed.

While I fine tune the slicer it means we might have to say No when you ask for sliced bread, especially in the morning. So it’s a good time to talk about the lost art of bread slicing.

When you buy a pre-sliced loaf, you give up a lot:

• Pre-sliced bread wrecks your crust. Once we put bread through the slicer, we have to put it in a plastic bag. That is going to soften the crispy crust we worked so hard to make. An unsliced loaf, in a paper bag, will preserve the crisp crust for the first few days you have the loaf.
• Pre-sliced bread stales faster. All those slices expose more of the crumb to the air, which means your loaf dries out faster. Placing an unsliced loaf cut side down on a cutting board, or placing the heel of the loaf over the cut end will reduce the amount of crumb exposed to the air.
• Pre-sliced bread must be completely cool. Putting warm bread through the slicer mangles the loaf. Lots of our customers love the way a warm loaf feels, smells and tastes.
• Mechanical slicers are fixed width. Sometimes I feel like a thick piece of texas toast. Other times it’s a thin slice for crostini. But pre-sliced bread is only one thickness, and rarely the thickness I desire.

I used to be terrible at slicing bread, but I loved crusty artisan bread so much that I taught myself how to be a good slicer. Here are some tips that I’ve picked up over the years:

• Use a good bread knife. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it should have a long, sturdy blade and a serrated edge. I have an Ikea bread knife  at home and we use Chicago Cutlery knives from Walmart at the bakery.  Both are under $20 and work very well, although if the Chicago Cutlery knife was two inches longer it would be perfect
• Use a smooth sawing motion. Your knife is sharp so you don’t have to work hard. Use long strokes and guide the knife through the loaf.
• Keep your blade straight. This is easier if you aren’t using a lot of pressure on the cutting stroke. Let the knife do the work and you can focus on keeping the blade perpendicular to your cutting board.
• Tip the loaf to cut through the bottom crust. Usually this isn’t necessary, but if you are having trouble cutting through the last bit of bottom crust, you can tip the loaf slightly and slice along the crust.
• Use your toaster as a gauge. While you are learning, there is only one measure of success. If your slice fits in the toaster, you win. If not, shave a little off the thick end and try again next time.

Now I completely realize that people with arthritis need some assistance. And sometimes the chewy crust on our rye can be a challenge. But slicing your own bread is easy and can even be fun. So while our slicer gets a tune up, break out your bread knife and get some practice in!

Thanks to Courteney D and her little Bootnik for this amazing photo!

This Walnut Raisin Sourdough is four days old. I had a slice for lunch today and it was delicious!

Have you ever seen those pictures of a fast food hamburger that can sit, unchanged, for months at a time?
Well, that’s not going to happen with Orange Boot bread. Even though our bread keeps well for a good long time, it won’t last forever. We don’t use any artificial preservatives in our baking, so there’s a limited shelf life to all our bread.

In a perfect world, everyone would have the time to walk to their neihbourhood bakery each day to pick up a fresh loaf of bread. Sadly, Regina isn’t perfect, except for a few lucky people in Albert Park. The rest of us need to think about how to care for our bread so it will keep for a few days after we bring it home.

Here’s what Cindy and I do so our bread at home is great to eat three, four or even five days after it’s baked.

Leave Your Bread at Room Temperature

Remember the Bread Box? Not only were they a standard unit of measure (everything in the world was either bigger or smaller than one) but they helped keep bread fresh longer, by forcing you to keep your bread out of the fridge.

Refrigeration is the single worst thing you can do to a loaf of bread. The cold (but not frozen) temperature is perfectly suited for staling. Your bread will go stale faster in the fridge than anywhere else in your house.

Love the Crust

I love a good crispy crust in my bread. The crust in a well baked loaf contains over 70% of the flavour, and the contrast between the crisp crust and soft crumb adds to the overall eating pleasure. So my first priority is to preserve the crust for the first day or so.

The best thing to do for the first day or two when you bring your loaf home is to leave it in its paper bag. When you slice the loaf, keep the end piece, place it over the freshly cut end and place everything back in the paper bag.

Kept in paper, your loaf will not mold, because there is plenty of opportunity for your loaf to breath and expell moisture from the crumb, through the crust and the paper bag, into the air. After a day or two, however, your loaf may have expelled enough moisture that it is starting to get a little too dry and hard. Your loaf is slowly starting to stale, so it’s time to move to Phase 2.

Finish in Plastic

If, after you’ve had your Orange Boot bread home for two days and still haven’t managed to eat it all, it’s time to move the loaf to a plastic bag. This will slow down the staling process, but has some unfortunate side effects:

• Your crust will turn soft. The moisture that continues to drift out from the crumb and through the crust will get trapped in the plastic bag. While that helps keep the overall loaf moist, it will make your crust soft too.
• Your bread might mold. This usually won’t happen for another 3-4 days (that is, 4-6 days after you bring your bread home) but that warm, moist environment is perfectly suited to mold development.

So by the time you have moved your loaf to plastic, it’s time to think about using it up. Morning toast, grilled sandwiches for lunch, french toast for supper, bread pudding and croutons are all great options. You could even dry your sliced bread till they are hard and whizz them in a blender for awesome bread crumbs.

Natural Preservatives

There is one thing we do at Orange Boot to help your bread keep a good long time. Our traditional long fermentation baking methods (both using wild yeast “sourdough” cultures or baker’s yeast) naturally raise the ph levels in the dough. Not only does this extra acidity add a lot of flavour to the bread, it helps prevent staling. Your great tasting Orange Boot bread will keep longer too.

You may have also noticed that our Orange Boot Birdseed Bread keeps an exceptionally long time. That’s because of all the seeds in the Birdseed Bread hold moisture, so your loaf will stay fresher longer. And taste pretty amazing too.

St. Patrick’s Day Specials

Cindy O’Dyck, Heather O’Dorr and Teisha McHuff have been hard at it for a week now getting a hint o’the Irish into the bakery. Irish Soda Bread is our Bread of the Month for the first half of March, available now and every day until March 16. Our soda bread is a result of a ton of tests based on recipes from our friend (and real Irish Lady) Rosanne Copithorn. The Orange Boot Bakery version is a light but hearty loaf with some whole wheat, oats and raisins. More bread than muffin, the smell of them makes me want to brew some tea whenever a batch comes out of the oven.

We will also have extra lucky Shamrock and Checkerboard Sugar Cookies and Chocolate Mint Whoopie Pies beginning next Tuesday, March 12.

Both the Irish Soda Bread and Shamrock cookies were a huge hit last year, so please call ahead so you don’t miss out. I’m still getting used to this 10 digit dialing, so please don’t forget the ’306′ — (306) 584-2668.

Easter Specials

If our Facebook page is any indication, there have been a lot of people patiently waiting for our Orange Boot Hot Cross Buns. Heck, someone even asked about them in January!

I’m happy to announce that Hot Cross Buns will be back starting at 9:30AM on Tuesday, March 12 and will be available every day until Easter.

Our Hot Cross Buns are the real deal — light, sweet, fruity spiced buns with the traditional flour paste cross, lightly brushed with a sweet glaze after baking. Without a doubt, they are our single most popular baked item and I’m sure there will be lineups once again this year.

We’re still making them fresh, by hand, every morning, so quantities are truly limited. Don’t miss out! Order today at (306) 584-2668.

We will also be making our special Easter Bread from Tuesday, March 19 till Easter Saturday, March 30. Some call it Pascka, some Kolach — it’s our take on the Easter Bread my Grandma made when I was a boy. Rich, sweet and round, with a fancy braided top.

We will have two types of Easter Bread available. One with raisins and cranberries and one without. A loaf or two will make a great addition to your Easter table. Please order yours soon to avoid disappointment.

Finally, like any other Special Eating Time, we’ll be making extra dinner buns. Primarily our soft white pull apart buns, but extra country style and 100% whole wheat too. It’s really worthwhile to order these in advance too since we never know how many to make.

Update: Orders are now closed for March.  There will be lots available Thursday and Easter Saturday, first come first served at the bakery, starting at 9:30AM each day.

So far we have  launched two of the three baskets.

Joy Campbell and her brother Bruce started the Green basket off in style — we’ve refilled it three times so far and sent it back from friend to friend.

Jill Vaisey launched the Blue basket last week and we’ve already refilled it once.  It was great to get that basket on the road.

We hope to launch the final (Red) basket next week.  We picked the winner but she’s on vacation for another day or two.

We still get very excited when a basket returns to the bakery.  Who will come in with it?  Maybe it will be you!