The Brockwell Bake started as an annual real baking competition and meet in Brockwell Park, Lambeth, South London in 2008. In 2009/10 we expanded our activities aimed at promoting knowledge and choice in baking in our local area to include growing heritage wheats on allotments, school and community gardens and with farmers close to London. We stone mill and bake with our wheat through out the year and at events such as the Lambeth Urban Green Fair and the Feast on the Bridge, The Mayor's Thames Festival. We also do real baking workshops with local schools.
BBA wheat season 2023/24
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BBA wheat season 2022/23
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Brussels trip
Trip to Brussels as participant in Techno-disobedience worksession at Constant with visits to seed rebel farmers, bakers and millers
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French road trip with Rupert Dunn
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Nicolas Supiot bakes for Ropenard village
private gallery
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Spring grain gathering, E5 bakehouse, March 2023
A nice get together at the beginning of Spring of bakers, millers and farmers mostly from SEGA and EAGA. We discussed reasons to bake with 100% heritage wheat and if so how. We had a tasting of 5 Spring wheats baked by Dan at E5 including Olands grown in amongst other plants by Tim Williams at Erth Barton and Olands grown as mono-crop and sown into ploughed land by John Turner. Finally we had some report backs from people commencing new operations, bakeries and milling.
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BBA wheat season 2021/22
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bunt workshop with Anders Borgen, Mariager, Denmark
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South East Grain Alliance, Winter meet 2021
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BBA wheat season 2020/21
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BBA wheat season 2019/20
A weird season across the British Isles, wet Winter, dry Spring. Earliest harvest yet on allotments, starting 25th June.
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South East Grain Alliance inaugural meeting
Meeting at Tree of Life Veganic farm, thanks to Jo and Conrad Kidd for their hospitality and Wild Bread bakery for food and drink
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grain trail 2020
Two trips this year to view wheats nearly ready for harvest around the British Isles, one to Suffolk and one westwards.
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PX Festival, 2019
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Let's Cultivate Diversity, Kalö, Denmark
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BBA wheat season 2018/19
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Brockwell Bake miscellany 2019
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BBA wheat season 2017/18
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Ruskin Park wheat, season 2017/18
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PX+ festival, Duchess Farms
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Torth Y Tir crop to loaf event with Nicolas Supiot
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Brockwell Bake miscellany 2018
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France 2018
private gallery
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baking tests 2016/17
baking and milling tests on our heritage flours conducted 2016/17 harvest including public tasting at E5 bakehouse on December 6th 2017
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BBA wheat season 2016/17
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Futurefarmers & Urban Bakers at SALT, Istanbul
Brockwell Bake went to Istanbul to participate in event entitled "Futurefarmers and Urban Bakers" covering seed saving, development of artisan baking and cultivation of landrace wheats in Turkey
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France, May 2017
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Brockwell Bake miscellany 2017
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BBA wheat season 2015/16
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Brockwell Bake miscellany 2016
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BBA wheat season 2014/15
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Brockwell Bake baking 2015
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un Tour de France
A five day stay in Midi Pyrnees with visits to two "boulanger paysan", farmers growing, milling and baking with "blés paysans" followed by two days searching for best baguette of Paris.
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Miscellaneous 2015
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BBA wheat season 2013/14
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wheat morphology gallery
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milling/baking tests - season 2014
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Brockwell Bake baking on WoWo - July 2014
starting July 2014 together with collaboration with good folks of WoWo Farm we are going to be baking next to the mill for the summer holidays. Provisionally this is called the "Singing Bread" project.
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Brockwell Bake @ Nordic heritage cereals seminar
Andrew Forbes was invited to attend the fourth "Nordic heritage cereals seminar" held from 14th to 17th July on the island of Ã…land, south from the mainland Finland.
It was good to give a short talk on the history of heritage wheat in British wheat and the export of early cultivars from Scotland and England to the Nordic countries.
Overall it was incredibly encouraging to hear about the progress made in re-introducing heritage cereals into cultivation in Nordic countries, roughly 7 years ahead of our own programme.
Especially interesting talks on mineral content of heritage cereals, evolutionary breeding with populations and blind tastings of different wheats.
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Brockwell Bake miscellany 2014
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BBA wheat 2012/13
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Brockwell Bake at SouthBanquet 2013
Brockwell Bake brought pizza making for kids and workshops on threshing, milling and baking to the SouthBanquet event in front of the Royal Festival Hall, August 31st and September 1st 2013. Video of Vincent Talleu teaching pizza making here.
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new thresher 2013
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Brockwell Bake miscellany 2013
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BBA at Bread Bread
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Brockwell Bake at the first Real Bread Fest
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our Moulin Astrié arrvies at WoWo Farm
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Harvest 2012
video of Stephen Simpson’s wheat cradle in action at Westmill Farm, Oxon here
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Melton Mowbray Country Show 2012
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Baking with Georgian wheat and a Georgian baker
Jean-Jaques Jacob came from Georgia with the very special Doli wheat flour of Georgia to bake with us for the Georgian "Supra" banquet at the first RAW festival of organic and bio-dynamic wine. Doli is an amazing and unique aromatic wheat with flavours like cinnamon, plum, roasted green almonds. The whole occasion was very interesting and exciting, especially to make friends with Jean-Jaques. We hope not too long before we can meet again, here or in Georgia and that if his harvest this year is good we can maybe import some Doli grain to mill and bake with here.
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Lets Liberate Diversity 2012: BBA in the Highlands
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Golspie Mill, Sutherland
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Madeira wheat 2012
Our project to sow Madeira wheat with local schools this spring 2012 ready to use at Feast on the Bridge, 2012
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Brockwell Bake miscellany, 2012
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BBA wheat 2011/12
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Madeiran landrace wheat types
Originally given to Brockwell Bake by Rosendale Allotments plot holder Antonio Luis in 2009
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Naked Barley review
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French lessons from organization
archive of images from the work of the French organization, Réseau Semences Paysannes kindly made available to us by Elise Demeulenaere, researcher at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
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Feast on the Bridge, 10/9/2011
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Brockwell Bake harvest at Hophurst Farm 21/8/11
Our harvest event on Hophurst Farm of Jacob’s Ladder Farms to gather in the wheat to be threshed, winnowed, milled and baked for the "Feast of Forgotten Fish" at the Feast on the Bridge, the Mayor’s Thames Festival. Reaping with scythe and cradle video here
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BBA tech developments 2011
reel sieve video here, reaping with scythe and cradle here
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wood fired ovens, Bread Bread bakery, Oct. 2011
Terre Blanche twin wood fired ovens - nice
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BBA expedition Bretagne - late July 2011
Visit in July 2011 by BBA members Andy Forbes and Vincent Talleu to the Breton village of Laurenan to check out the mills made by Samuel Poillâne of type "meule de pierre type Astrié" to see whether right mill for BBA. Samuel with his partner Valérie Poillâne-Tabart also bake bread for the neighborhood every week as well as supplying organic veggie boxes. Lovely to also to meet again after their London trip their three very lively lovely sons Ismaél, Jason and Perig Poilâne-Tabart.
We also made very interesting visit to the peasant farmer/bakers Julie and Florian on their "Ferme de Carafray" and their heritage wheat trials.
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BBA at Melton Mowbray country show, June 2011
Our second annual BBA trip to the memorable Melton Mowbray Country Show
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Spring sowings, 2011
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Brockwell Bake events 2011 - miscellany
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Winter wheat, 2010/11
Our second season of heritage wheat growing.
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Brockwell Bake flour and baking
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Dutch windmiller/millstone maker visit
Visit to molensteenmakerij, Hans Tituelar’s windmill and millstone workshop near Nijmegen, Netherlands, November 2010.
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Feast on the Bridge - 2010
Our first Feast on the Bridge.
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Brockwell Bake, Lambeth Urban Green Fair 2010
Saturday, 5th September - our first attempt to do the whole works at one event - thresh, winnow, mill and bake
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Brockwell Bake local events 2010
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new oven for Brockwell Bake
3D animations of oven designs Mk II here and Mk III with trailer here - requires Virtools plug-in.
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Wheat Harvest - 10/8/10
Pics by RAA plotholder Elkin Atwell as we try late night to finish harvest on plot 35 and 36 before the start of a wet August 2010.
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Spring Wheat, South London, 2010
Sowings around South London on school, community gardens and allotments during March 2010 including 16 heritage wheats (early cultivars and may be a few landraces) from the John Innes Centre’s BBSRC Small Grain Cereal Collections.
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Trip to John Innes Centre 28/7/10
Trip to inspect heritage wheat trials in the John Innes Centre’s fields near Norwich as guest of Mike Ambrose, curator of the BBSRC Small Grain Cereal Collections
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2010 season: miscellaneous
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Winter Wheat, Catalonia, 2009/10
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inside Brixton Windmill
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Tivissa, Oct. 2009, oven firing and wheat planting
After a long wait, since the oven was uncovered and dome rebuilt in 1998, finally manage to get a new oven door together and make pizza and bake decent bread in Gary and Adrian’s oven 9th October 2009. Plus dig over the huerta behind the lower caseta and a patch of the meanie (fennel) field and do a first sowing of the Letts Winter mix of traditional UK wheat.
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Brockwell Bake 2009
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Melton Mowbray: Whissendine Windmill & pizzas
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1st annual Brockwell Bake, August 31st 2008
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Pro wood-fired oven, London
Pics from the wood fired B & B oven on the Old Kent Road with bakers Dave and Vincent Talleu (his website with more bread pics here).
BAKERY ACTION ANIMATION HERE
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oven and mill, Pyrenees, France
a few pics showing baker/mill set up in Pyrnees. We believe the mill/bakery supplied bread to about five local villages so quite big by local standards. Oven was of the "gueulard" design.
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The new very old Artofex mixer
Now that I had an oven that could bake more than one loaf at a time I found I needed a bigger mixer than my so called "Heavy Duty" Kitchenaide. Remembering the Artofex "triple action twin reciprocal plunging arms" mixer (originally a French make) Richard had shown me at Baker and Spice I started a search for one. Luckily I came up with an expired ebay auction, where no bids had been made, whose seller turned out to be just 8 miles away in Mitcham - I know of other people who are scouring across all continents to find the same machine . Here you can see other bakers describe this as the Stradivarius of dough mixers, its certainly the mixer that most closely mimics hand kneading to make a beautiful silky, "artisanal" style dough. My machine was originally supplied to the "Laboratory of the Government Chemist" in 1974 and appears to be in perfect working order - due to the amazing quality of its materials and engineering. Just its quiet deep hum when running makes the Kitchenaide sound like a tin and plastic toy in comparison.
Videos - "a dough mix" video of mixig of a 3 kilo dough batch, 65% hydration white sourdough from poolish. Two 12 minute mixes with 15 minutes rest between.
"lifting arms"
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Since the 2009/10 season we sowed wheat in the Lambeth and Southwark area including samples of early cultivar and UK landraces of spring wheat from the
, Hyde Farm Community Garden SW12,
Arden House, Lambeth Walk SE11 5QH, Community Garden Mayow Park Sydenham SE26, Brookwood House Council Estate Community Garden, Southwark SE1, Guinness Trust Estate Allotments Brixton SW9, The Onion Shed @ Roots and Shoots SE11 6DN, Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses SE24 9BJ, Vauxhall City Farm (with local Primary School) SE11 5HS, Cowley Estate Farm SW9 6LZ, Sutton Community Farm SM6 0SH, Myatt's Fields Park Project Group SE5, Oasis Children's Nature Garden SW8 4ER, Chiswick House Walled Garden W4 2RP, Burges Salmon LLP BS2 0ZX, Tooting Community Garden SW16, Surrey Docks City Farm SE16 5ET, Edible Bus Stop, Landor Rd. SW9 9NU, Slade Gardens Adventure Playground SW9 0AB, Spitafields City Farm E1 5AR, Stepney City Farm E1 3DG, Incredible Edible Lambeth, Friends of (Brixton) Windmill Gardens, Friends of Ruskin Park
, Rosendale Primary School SE21 8LR, Friars Primary Foundation School SE1 0RF, Walnut Tree Walk Primary School SE11 6DS, Reay Primary School SW9 0EN, Streatham and Clapham High School SW16 1AW, Hackney Community College N1 6HQ, Sprouting 56 - Camberwell School of Arts SE5 8UF, Prior Weston Primary School EC1Y 8JA, The Elmgreen School (Secondary) SE27 9BZ, Brindishe Lee Primary School SE12 8NA, Buckland Primary School TW18 1NB, Heswall Primary School CH60 7SD, Tower Bridge Primary School SE1 2AE, St Johns Angell Town CofE Primary School SW9 7HH, St Michael Steiner School Wandsworth SW18 5ST, Sudbourne Primary School SW2 5AP, John Donne Primary School SE15 2SW, Crampton Primary School SE17 3LE
In addition we supply heritage wheat seed for school and community sowing projects to community groups and schools outside of London across the UK.
