Bread is our origin.
It’s who we are, it’s where GAIL’s started and it’s what we continue to take pride in baking every day.
As bakers, we’re constantly looking at how we can improve, refine and evolve the way we bake. We know there is no such thing as a finished recipe. There are always tweaks to be made, challenges to adapt to and new ideas to embrace.
The Way We Bake is an initiative that will see us reconsider our bread recipes from the perspective of nutrition, flavour and sustainability over the next two years.
From using a greater variety of grains, growing them in ways that support the shift away from exploitive farming or creating new recipes to use up surplus loaves, each loaf has to be good for the bread, good for the people and good for the planet.
It’s the way we bake.
Good for the bread
We want you to be able to really taste what goes into our bread. To linger over the deep malted notes of our Brown Slab. To wonder whether that nutty sweetness is coming from the chestnut flour or the spelt flour. To notice the subtle balanced with the strong. To appreciate the depth and complexity whilst also just enjoying your sandwich. Every loaf has to realise the flavour potential of the ingredients so that every bite can be fully and truly savoured.
Good for the people
Good bread should nourish the body as well as the soul and we want every crumb of the bread we bake to be as nourishing as it is delicious. More diversity makes for a happier, healthier gut microbiome so by using multiple varieties of ancient and heritage grains in our bread, we’re improving the nutritional content as well as the taste. Fermented food is also great for our gut microbiome. Our San Francisco Sourdough is now vegan friendly, meaning more people can enjoy its fermented goodness. And as well as honouring time old baking methods and techniques, we’re also improving farming methods by working with our growers on initiatives like The Wheat Project so we can get the most from and give back to the precious soil and land we farm.
Good for the planet
When done right, baking sustains and is sustainable. As we grow as a business, we have more responsibility and opportunity to have a greater positive impact. That’s why we choose to work with likeminded makers, growers and suppliers who share our belief that good food can do good. From using more ancient and heritage grains in our bread to sourcing wheat and flour from regenerative farms that support our ecosystem or using nuts grown in the UK in our Hazelnut & Walnut Sourdough. Every ingredient choice, every baking decision comes back to building a healthier, more sustainable food system, one that will feed humanity for generations to come and support our mission to make food that tastes good and does good.
With all this in mind, here are a few new welcome additions to our bread range:
OUR NEW BREAD RANGE
Focaccia
Inspired by traditional Genovese and Sicilian baking methods, this country style focaccia includes heritage grains such as emmer, spelt and buckwheat. Made with flour sourced from regenerative farms. Spongy, slightly darker in colour, and more complex flavoured focaccia.
San Francisco Sourdough
This reimagined homage to the iconic San Francisco sourdough bread culture is now vegan friendly. We’ve taken out the yoghurt and milk and added semolina, rye, spelt and emmer flour. The result is a dark, crackled, flour dusted crust with yoghurt-like fermented notes and a deep grain sweetness.
Brown Slab
The wholegrain loaf we’ve always wanted to bake, this recipe was inspired by the old-world loaves of French and German bakers. Designed to utilise the entirety of a farmer’s yield, we’ve used multiple whole grain varieties to improve nutrition and depth of flavour. Emmer, spelt, rye, organic barley, organic buckwheat, fava bean and stoneground country flour are packed into this recipe alongside wholegrain, regenerative and heritage population wheat - making it a truly whole field loaf.
Hazelnut & Walnut Sourdough
With a respectful nod to the French Pain au Noix, we’ve taken the best of British countryside and the nuts grown here to create this loaf. Based on our Sourdough recipe, this hand twisted nut loaf combines UK grown walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnut flour and a pinch of rosemary. We add the water the nuts are soaked in to create the deep purple crumb and then stud with hazelnuts and walnuts for extra good nutty measure.
