The North Shore Dish Artisan Bread Along the North Shore By Chuck Viren
Over the many thousands of years that humans have been making bread, techniques have been refined, as have the grains used to make bread. None-the-less, bread still consists primarily of flour, water, yeast and salt. And once we overcame our infatuation with Wonder Bread, the popularity of artisan breads grew more rapidly than bread dough on a hot summer day. Those who make these crusty, chewy loaves for a living share a passion for bread and a keen attention to detail. I spoke with three bakeries to learn of their approaches to baking bread. They were Duluth’s Best Bread, Sapling Bakery in Thunder Bay, and Crosby Bakery in Grand Marais. While in graduate school working on his master’s degree in Mathematics, Michael Lillegard and his father built a brick pizza oven in his back yard. The high temperatures produced by the oven got him interested in baking bread. Using the mindset of a mathematician and the discipline of a martial artist, he set about learning to make the perfect loaf. He purchased the book Artisan Breads Every Day, by Peter Reinhart, and proceeded to bake every recipe in it. Approximately one year and 2,000 loaves later, he felt he had hit on a near-perfect recipe. He reached out to his brother Robert to handle sales, marketing, and “the details,” and Duluth’s Best Bread, located at 2632 W. 3rd St., was formed. Their crusty, moist, and flavorful loaves are time-consuming to make. The process involves the use of a wild yeast they purchased overseas and have preserved for six years; they threw a birthday party for it this year. Their basic dough consists only of flour, water, salt and their wild yeast. The dough cool ferments overnight, a process that deepens the flavor of the bread and is more predictable and consistent. The moist dough is then baked at a high heat to create that artisan crust and to lock in the moisture. According to Robert, “quality is the number one driver for our products.”
The Sapling Bakery in Thunder Bay produces 10 varieties of breads in addition to pastries. Among their popular breads is the farmer’s rye [ABOVE], cheese loaf [BOTTOM LEFT] and power loaf [BOTTOM RIGHT]. | SAPLING BAKERY
Their hand-made loaves are based on their Country Loaf. Ingredients are added to create their varieties. Their cheese curd bread has a devoted following. Their cranberry wild rice has all the right touches. The rich flavor from the wild yeast is complemented by nuttiness of the wild rice and the tang of the cranberries. They also produce rosemary onion and a sunflower flax bread. Their breads are available at their walk-up location on W. 3rd St., at NORTHERN WILDS
APRIL 2021
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