Bakery: Bread and Fermented Goods by Leonard J. Hanneman.

Bakery: Bread and Fermented Goods by Leonard J. Hanneman.  Hardcover book published by Heinemann 1980, 208 pages with some black and white photographs and a few black and white illustrations.

Bakery: Flour Confectionery by Leonard J. Hanneman. Hardcover book published by Heinemann 1981, 304 pages with some black and white photographs and a few black and white illustrations.

 

“This is the first of two splendid, lavishly illustrated books on bakery aimed at professional bakers and confectioners, who are interested in maintaining and increasing good standards of craft.”

“This profusely illustrated book is the companion volume to Bakery: Bread & Fermented Goods.  A wide variety of recipes advocate methods generally in common use in most small bakeries, some with specialised bakery materials and equipment.”

Recently one of the larger supermarket chains here in Australia, has been accused of misleading customers with some of their baked products.*  Apparently they have been claiming that bread and other baked items have been "freshly baked in-store".  This sadly is not the story, as the “freshly baked in-store” bread has been baked in Ireland… or so the accusation claims.  They are currently under investigation by the ACCC.

Let’s assume that this story is true (… it is under investigation and you never know, they may be innocent).  If you look at a map of the world, you’ll notice that Australia is a long way from Ireland.  We’re not talking a quick ferry ride, or a quick flight from the European mainland.  It is a long way from Ireland to Australia... particularly the bottom right hand corner, which is where the major complaint has been made.  So I can only guess that the cost including the cost of shipping (I assume that they fly the products to Australia) is cheaper than baking here.  We live in a very strange world.  Think about it.  Can it really be cheaper to bake something in Ireland and fly it to the other side of the world?  … Or maybe we’ve lost the skills to bake bread here, which is where these 2 books could possibly come into this story.

Pictures from Bakery: Bread & Fermented Goods:

These books have got all, or at least some, of the information anyone (including a supermarket) could possibly need to bake bread or cakes on a commercial scale.* I’m sure the Irish do make wonderful tasty bread, just as sure as I am that Australia… even a supermarket… could make wonderful tasty bread.  (Ireland, please don’t take offence at what I’m writing here, this isn’t about your bread, it’s about our bread.)  All the supermarket chain needs to do is buy these books from me… they would be supporting an Australian business by doing so… they could get some bakers and some machinery and voila, bread that is “freshly baked in-store”.  How simple is that?   It’s a better concept that the half baked one they currently have in place.  

*Fruit and vegetables as well. 

**The books are suitable for home use as well.