It is bread baking day in the Black Forest

We are in Joklisbauern Hof in Gutach, Germany. This is at the edge of the Black Forest, near the French border. We were fortunate to stay in this farm B and B on bread baking day. Not really keeping count, they said they bake over 100 loaves of white and rye bread every Friday.

The town folk can see the smoke from the wood oven and several hours later, the bread smell starts wafting into town.

At 6 a.m. the first batch is started in the kitchen. A large professional mixer is rolled into the center of the kitchen. It does the mixing and the kneading. After enough proofing time, loaves are formed and left to rest on long boards in the kitchen.

During this time, Martin has built a wood fire in the oven where his father and grandfather also baked bread. The coals are then moved to each side of the large oven, excess is scraped out and the stove is brushed clean with a large, wet brush. The water also helps to provide steam which makes a crackly crust.

This is definitely a two man (woman) job. Martin and Elfriede carry the loaves out of the house and into the small oven room. Notice, Elfriede is smiling. She smiles constantly.

Metal pegs protrude out of the stone wall in the oven room where the heavy bread laden boards are laid. Can you see some of the loaves just drooping off the board?

Elfiede gives each loaf a gentle pat and reshaping as Martin shoves the loaves to the back of the oven. He uses a thermometer which he holds to the opening of the oven and gets an immediate 184 degrees C. "Perfect" he says. That is approximately 365 degrees F. Every 15 minutes thereafter, he turns each loaf to let it bake evenly, otherwise one side will blacken too much. The loaves bake for one hour. They bake three batches like this every Friday.

He bakes 1 kg loaves which he sells for 1.8 euro. The 2 kg loaves sell for 2.5 euro. All day, cars arrive to buy the bread. Just guess who was first at the breakfast table when the warm loaves came out of the oven. "Perfect", I say, "perfect." The rich farm butter just slid off the crusty bread.