Surrey Baking - The best thing since sliced bread

The smell of baking bread wafting from the kitchen is one of the classic ruses to attract a buyer when selling your home; it seems to appeal to a really basic human instinct.

A staple part of our diet for centuries, bread has been eaten unleavened or yeasted since man first learned to harvest grain and grind it into flour. The ancient Egyptians lived on it when they built the pyramids; the 21st century office worker relies on it for a sandwich lunch.

Baking your own bread is easy and introduces you to an experience that is light years away from the commercial sliced loaf. A home made loaf actually has flavour and texture, and you can vary the mixture by adding seeds, whole grain, oats, spelt or rye. When you bake your own bread, it’s tasty in its own right, rather than a platform to heap other food on.

Fresh milled Surrey flour

Over at Imbhams Farm in Haslemere, Margaret Barlow and James Halfhide have been producing their own fresh milled Surrey flour, and other cereal based products, for just over a year.

“We mill and flake whole cereal grains for bread, bakery and breakfast products,” explains Margaret. “These include whole wheat, oats and spelt.

“Spelt is naturally high in fibre and contains more protein than wheat and more B complex vitamins, plus both simple and complex carbohydrates. It has a different type of gluten than wheat too, which means that some gluten-sensitive people can digest it safely.”

Visiting the Famers' Markets

Not only do their products fly off the shelves of their shop, but also at the many Farmers’ Markets they visit each month. The pair are passionate about what they do, and believe strongly in the benefits of buying produce locally.

“One of our aims is to reconnect farming and food,” explains Margaret, “It’s important people know where food comes from. We work with grains grown on, and local to, Furnace Place Estate and the Imbhams Farm Granary.

“We encourage people to try our products so that they can taste the difference. We bake oat biscuits, flapjacks and muffins, and a whole range of different breads.

“The whole point is to eat or bake it fresh. That’s why we sell grain and flour in small packs and we recommend keeping them in the fridge and using within two weeks of milling.”

The health benefits are there too. When you make a loaf yourself, even using commercial flour, it has a limited shelf life - not a problem as it’s so nice it will probably get eaten quickly anyway. The equivalent commercial loaf will stay soft for a week or more, because it contains additives. Go one step further and buy fresh milled flour that has nothing added at all, and you have the very best.

Why not join the Surrey Life community and discuss your favourite recipes and Surrey produce here

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