The Fresh Loaf

News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts


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Joe Fisher's picture
Joe Fisher


There's just something satisfying about eating a sandwich on bread you've made yourself. Soft, delicious bread. A sense of accomplishment. Anyone can go to the store and buy bread, and sometimes even more cheaply than I can make it for (I don't want to think about how much I spent in molasses on my last pumpernickel).

It's funny, because not that long ago, it would have been completely commonplace to eat your own bread. We've become a society so dependent on having others do things for us.

I'm a woodworker, and there's a similar satisfaction to working with tools you've made yourself. Again, the craftsman of old would have scoffed at such an idea, having made 95% of his own tools. Today, you can buy tools just about anywhere for 1/2 of what it would cost you to make them.

But then cost isn't the point, is it?



Suiseiseki's picture

Very true. I make mostly open-phase sandwiches and french toast using sandwich loaves I made from scratch. I'm half way through my current loaf, a not-so-successful experimental loaf, but I still love it.

luc's picture

I couldn't agree more.

I recently made a batch of chocolate mousee. I used semi-sweet 70% percent coccoa mass chocolate from Belgium.

Not cheap by a long shot. Not even when I get it at a wholesale price.

But the end result can't be touched by any of the others out there.
The mousse sold well in my cafe. How could it not?!?! It's as rich as it gets made with top quality chocolate, tons of butter and egg yolks!

But something that really made me go slack in the jaw was that a customer mentioned that they also like the chocolate desserts at another place - since we often buy from the same wholesaler our supplies I have a good idea of what they're using - needless to say most of it is crap... chocolate with so little coccoa mass it might as well be wax!

If this person liked mine and liked theirs also - why spend the extra money to make mine top notch?!?!?!

At the end of the day it comes down to what you want in your life. I want to make the best stuff there is - not crap stuff that I can pawn off on people who don't know better.

At the end of the day - crafstmanship matters - if not to the customers - it definitely does to me.