Orb Week 100 = new life!
Can't quite believe that Orb has now been in business for 100 weeks!
And Mark can't quite believe that Monday 12th Oct was the first real day when asked what he does for a living he now says; 'I'm a baker'!!
Mark keeps saying he's 'Left work.' But what he's actually left is the day job. And now taken on the night job - He was up to up until 3.20am on Friday/Sat and then up at 4.45am getting ready for Willingham Feast Farmer's Market, Bushel Box and customer orders.
Place to spread out!
So can you help us take Orb into its next phase?..
1. We're looking at our options for expansion and space is what we need. We are thinking of using our garden room as a halfway house but if there is anything else locally, cheaply, that can easily be converted to bakery we'd love to hear about them... put your feelers out!
2. Do you know of really good deli, farmer's shops, community shops that you visit that may be interested in taking our bread and cakes?
Over Village Market Sat 3rd Oct - What a Day!!
We hope many of you made it to Over's first market in many a generation. We were blessed with wonderful weather and wonderful and varied stalls. It was a delight to look up from our stall - once we could get our heads up after a frenzy of selling selling selling - to see clusters of people, families, dogs, geese, turkeys (we kid you not -Hempsal's Community Farm brought these along), the bright pink tables of Polkadot Tea Shop full of customers enjoying cappuccino's and slabs of home made cakes. The smells from Mario Di Matos' BBQ of meat from Swavesey's Rosegate Farm's incredible welfare friendly traditional breed pigs, sheep and cattle; it was really interesting to learn about local heritage apple varieties from Rosie Wayman, Fruit & veg came from Willingham's Bushel Box Farm Shop and there were tasty cheesecakes and cookies from the Cambridge Cookie Company.
Crafts and arts were provided by Paula Armstrong's inventive ceramics and the delightful cards and other home made crafts from Blue Design Shed. Ashworth Oils were there providing single estate Olive Oils and, to add to the heady mix of delightful aromas, Sheena Bridgeman was selling her beautiful artisanal soaps.
Mark was driving from home to green, from green to home and all over again - continuing baking all morning - We sold out double quick time and all the bread we had in the oven was sold before it had even got back to the stall - we could have sold three times as much if we could have made it!!
It gave us all fuzzy warm feeling. So many people had such a great time. It was a fuzzy warm feeling that was so nice that we'll be looking to find another date to repeat
If you'd like to see photos from the day go to http://sturman.co.uk/OverMarket/ - there's some really great photos - including some of the incredible work of local craftspeople and artists.
It's Autumn - Apple & Blackberry Muffins are back!
We've got blackberries and trees laden with Apples just crying out for us to stuff them in our muffins again. And so these season treats are back!! Let us know if you'd like some
Gt British Bake Off
We finally managed to sit down and watch the final on Sunday morning. OMG! Did you see it?
Both Caroline and Mark were in floods of tears. Mark had managed to avoid knowing who had won since Wednesday - mostly by putting fingers in his ears and shouting "La la la la la la la !!!" at the top of his voice every time he heard anyone start to talk about it, not going on the internet, twitter, looking at any papers etc etc. Caroline was not so lucky
Still, we were both blubbing like babies! - Ruby our daughter secretly filmed us and put the film out on Snap Chat.... whatever that is! Apparently lots of people liked it!
True Loaf Magazine
The Real Bread Campaign magazine is just out and they've run an article our Orb's Real Bread Day in Over Primary School. - We've attached this if you you'd like to read it; Click here to read True Loaf
Death of a Rye Starter :-(
Apparently every baker of sourdough bread has to do it at some time... kill your starter or, as it is more emotively sometimes called - killing your 'mother'!!
There is an almost pet-like quality to a sourdough starter, it needs feeding, keeping in the best condition, it brings pleasure and sometimes causes pain. Some bakers even give their starters names - which is perhaps a bit OTT.
So when Mark 'refreshed' his 100% Rye Starter with wholemeal flour last week it was almost like he'd killed a dear dear pet - or indeed his mother! Actually, he had not killed it as such, but it changed from one thing to another - it can't be used in 100% Rye breads, the Russian Seeded and the Borodinski. But it has now been adopted by and is now part of the wholemeal starter for our Pain de Campagne breads
And so Dr Frankenstein-like Mark is creating new life in a a new Rye starter. Hopefully this will be strong and prepared for action before the weekend.
Can't quite believe that Orb has now been in business for 100 weeks!
And Mark can't quite believe that Monday 12th Oct was the first real day when asked what he does for a living he now says; 'I'm a baker'!!
Mark keeps saying he's 'Left work.' But what he's actually left is the day job. And now taken on the night job - He was up to up until 3.20am on Friday/Sat and then up at 4.45am getting ready for Willingham Feast Farmer's Market, Bushel Box and customer orders.
Place to spread out!
So can you help us take Orb into its next phase?..
1. We're looking at our options for expansion and space is what we need. We are thinking of using our garden room as a halfway house but if there is anything else locally, cheaply, that can easily be converted to bakery we'd love to hear about them... put your feelers out!
2. Do you know of really good deli, farmer's shops, community shops that you visit that may be interested in taking our bread and cakes?
Over Village Market Sat 3rd Oct - What a Day!!
We hope many of you made it to Over's first market in many a generation. We were blessed with wonderful weather and wonderful and varied stalls. It was a delight to look up from our stall - once we could get our heads up after a frenzy of selling selling selling - to see clusters of people, families, dogs, geese, turkeys (we kid you not -Hempsal's Community Farm brought these along), the bright pink tables of Polkadot Tea Shop full of customers enjoying cappuccino's and slabs of home made cakes. The smells from Mario Di Matos' BBQ of meat from Swavesey's Rosegate Farm's incredible welfare friendly traditional breed pigs, sheep and cattle; it was really interesting to learn about local heritage apple varieties from Rosie Wayman, Fruit & veg came from Willingham's Bushel Box Farm Shop and there were tasty cheesecakes and cookies from the Cambridge Cookie Company.
Crafts and arts were provided by Paula Armstrong's inventive ceramics and the delightful cards and other home made crafts from Blue Design Shed. Ashworth Oils were there providing single estate Olive Oils and, to add to the heady mix of delightful aromas, Sheena Bridgeman was selling her beautiful artisanal soaps.
Mark was driving from home to green, from green to home and all over again - continuing baking all morning - We sold out double quick time and all the bread we had in the oven was sold before it had even got back to the stall - we could have sold three times as much if we could have made it!!
It gave us all fuzzy warm feeling. So many people had such a great time. It was a fuzzy warm feeling that was so nice that we'll be looking to find another date to repeat
If you'd like to see photos from the day go to http://sturman.co.uk/OverMarket/ - there's some really great photos - including some of the incredible work of local craftspeople and artists.
It's Autumn - Apple & Blackberry Muffins are back!
We've got blackberries and trees laden with Apples just crying out for us to stuff them in our muffins again. And so these season treats are back!! Let us know if you'd like some
Gt British Bake Off
We finally managed to sit down and watch the final on Sunday morning. OMG! Did you see it?
Both Caroline and Mark were in floods of tears. Mark had managed to avoid knowing who had won since Wednesday - mostly by putting fingers in his ears and shouting "La la la la la la la !!!" at the top of his voice every time he heard anyone start to talk about it, not going on the internet, twitter, looking at any papers etc etc. Caroline was not so lucky
Still, we were both blubbing like babies! - Ruby our daughter secretly filmed us and put the film out on Snap Chat.... whatever that is! Apparently lots of people liked it!
True Loaf Magazine
The Real Bread Campaign magazine is just out and they've run an article our Orb's Real Bread Day in Over Primary School. - We've attached this if you you'd like to read it; Click here to read True Loaf
Death of a Rye Starter :-(
Apparently every baker of sourdough bread has to do it at some time... kill your starter or, as it is more emotively sometimes called - killing your 'mother'!!
There is an almost pet-like quality to a sourdough starter, it needs feeding, keeping in the best condition, it brings pleasure and sometimes causes pain. Some bakers even give their starters names - which is perhaps a bit OTT.
So when Mark 'refreshed' his 100% Rye Starter with wholemeal flour last week it was almost like he'd killed a dear dear pet - or indeed his mother! Actually, he had not killed it as such, but it changed from one thing to another - it can't be used in 100% Rye breads, the Russian Seeded and the Borodinski. But it has now been adopted by and is now part of the wholemeal starter for our Pain de Campagne breads
And so Dr Frankenstein-like Mark is creating new life in a a new Rye starter. Hopefully this will be strong and prepared for action before the weekend.