Zoë Bakes Deep Dive: All The Bread

A Q&A with Wes Gardner from Bakers Field Flour and Bread, my must-have bread making equipment and an exclusive recipe!

I wrote my first Bread in 5 book in 2005, when the Atkins diet was just sliding out of fashion and people were starting to celebrate bread as an important staple on our tables again, but few were actually baking it themselves.

My co-author and I wrote Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (affil. link) in an attempt to share our love of baking and we knew we had to take the mystery and intimidation out of the process. We watched as millions of people baked our bread at home, many for the very first time and it was a thrill.

Our method is really fast and easy to make, so it fits into a busy schedule. Never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate the sourdough bread baking moment that is upon us now. It is wonderful to watch this ancient craft being reignited and to see the beautiful loaves of bread being baked in your homes. If you haven’t tried your hand at it yet, I hope this newsletter will inspire you to give it a go.

No matter if you’ve been at this for years or are just attempting your first loaf, there are always new tips and tricks to be learned from professionals, so today I’m excited to share a Q&A with Wes Gardner, Head Baker/Miller at Baker’s Field Flour and Bread, one of my favorite local resources for incredible freshly milled flour. Baking with fresh, local flour is a real treat. If you’ve watched Zoë Bakes on Magnolia Network you met Wes in episode 10: Easy Breads.

Read on to find out where Wes got his start, about his favorite kitchen tools, and what he’s working on next! You’ll also find an exclusive recipe for his sourdough Table Bread from the bakery, my bread baking recommendations, and more.

If you feel like supporting a small business with fantastic flour, please give Baker’s Field some love and order from them. I promise you’ll be thrilled with the results after baking with their flour!

Q&A: Wes Gardner, Head Baker/Miller at Baker’s Field Flour and Bread

Q: Tell us about your food origin story. What brought you to where you are today? 

Wes Gardner: I mostly fell into baking through coincidence and hard work. As a teenager, I didn’t think of food as a profession, or ever really make meals from scratch. Once in college, I worked at a pizza/Italian restaurant and fell in love with the atmosphere and way of life there, but I still didn’t think of it as a long-term career. So after school, I worked in an office doing what I got my degree in (geography). That only lasted two years and afterward I could only think of working in a restaurant. My first baking job was at Kramarczuk’s in Northeast Minneapolis. I was looking for a cooking position, but either I made the mistake of not reading the ad or they just really wanted a baker instead. Either way, I worked there for over a year and learned a lot about how to work in and around a bakery. I learned about proofing times, organization, ordering, and the general chaos of retail bread making. From there, I moved to Rustica Bakery where I met Steve Horton. At Rustica, I learned a lot of the fundamentals of production bread making and that was my introduction to naturally leavened bread. Steve eventually sold Rustica and after about a year and a half, he asked me if I wanted to help him open Baker’s Field. It was such an amazing opportunity that I couldn’t pass it up. I have now been here for over 5 years.    

Q: Tell us about someone who influenced you to where you are today. Who inspired you to get into food?

WG: Each of my former bosses has influenced me. Whether they were running a long-time family business or pursuing their own dreams, their hard work and knowledge of their craft really gave me a lot to aspire to. 

Q: What's a food trend you're excited about and a food trend you hate?

WG: A food trend that I’m excited about is the model of food production that the Food Building (in Northeast Minneapolis) is trying to highlight: small, locally-focused operations that don’t cut corners to make an extra dollar. Each business in the building is making world-class food and it’s all [sourced] from nearby farms. The fact that people are catching onto this and appreciating it is really exciting.

A food trend that I hate is a close tie between fancy toast and the obsession with avocados. I love toast (obviously) and I like avocados, but why are they so popular and made into strange dishes?

Q: Can you share a pro tip for cooking or baking? What's something you may use often or think is brilliant but home cooks might not know about?

WG: I don’t know if people are aware of them, but I do think that every home baker should have a digital scale (affil. link) that reads in metric units. Baking using weight instead of volume will get you much more consistent results and a better overall product.

Q: What's your favorite piece of kitchen equipment and why?

WG: I recently got a new saute pan for cooking at home. I know it’s a basic piece of equipment, but with a good pan, you can really make just about anything at home. It was a game-changer.

Q: What are you working on next?

WG: We are currently working on making naturally leavened (sourdough) croissants at the bakery. We make everything naturally leavened here so trying croissants in this fashion was a logical next step for us. It has proven to be very challenging, but we are excited by what we are discovering. We’ll have them available soon!

Q: What's your favorite cookbook and why?

The Joy of Cooking (affil. link). To me, it has everything you need to know about how to get started with just about any meal. It’s an encyclopedia of cooking.

Q: What's the most memorable thing you've ever eaten and where (if possible) can people get it?

WG: I’ve had a lot of great meals while traveling with my wife, but to relate this to baking, I would have to say that my grandma’s homemade bread and pies are my most memorable. She has been making loaves for the family for years. Every time I’m at her house, I’m transported back to the holidays when her house was filled with the smell of fresh-baked bread.

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Baker’s Field Table Bread Recipe

This is Wes’s formula for baking the wonderful sourdough mixed grain loaves at the Baker’s Field bakery. It is written in baker's percentages, which is how bread recipes look in a professional setting. It allows the baker to make adjustments based on how much flour is in the recipe and how high or low they want the hydration. Each baker has their own formula for how wet or dry they make their dough. This will also change based on the flour used and time of year. It’s all part of the magic and art of a recipe. There are some cookbooks where you will see baker’s percentages, but it is decidedly and wonderfully geeky. I left Wes’s recipe as he provided it, but added some notes for those who are less familiar with the sourdough baking process.

If you have your own starter, then feel free to use that, just make sure you feed it and it’s ready to rise. For those who don’t have a starter, here is an easy sourdough starter recipe. It is a super fun project, but does take some time to create a strong, healthy starter. You’ll need to make a new starter at least 7 days ahead of trying a sourdough recipe to make sure it’s bubbly and active.

For those of you who want something a little less intensive, here is the Basic FIVE-MINUTE Boule recipe! Or, try them both and let me know what you think of the process and the outcome.

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Bread Baking Equipment

After baking bread for decades, there are a few tools I would not be caught without in my kitchen. Check out my full list of bread baking tools below, but if you’re just getting started with this easy homemade bread, I always recommend a Danish dough whisk* (watch me rave about it in the video above!), a 6-quart bucket*, and a kitchen scale*. *indicates affil. link

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Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

"Soon the bread will be making itself ... The crusty, full-flavored loaf that results may be the world's easiest yeast bread." —Nick Fox, The New York Times