JONES MILL HOUSE BAKERY
We offer these through Gilmanton’s Own Market or through direct order.
We’re not professional bakers. We’ve never been trained. But we love wonderful breads, especially classics from different regions of the world, and we do our best to make these international breads as authentically as possible in a home kitchen. Our favorites are the basic bread of France and Italy — think of people coming home from the baker in the morning with a baguette under the arm. But there’s also nothing like homemade pita, naan, and others that are a whole different experience when you bake them at home. We certainly don’t neglect classic American breads, especially in our “small breads” line — Multigrain English Muffins, beautiful enriched Hot Dog and Hamburger Buns, Honey Corn Muffins, and more.
So we’ve tasted and read, and tasted and baked and baked and baked. We only bake what we eat.
We offer our baked goods through Gilmanton’s Own Market. You can also special-order breads from us and we will deliver through the Market. If you want to order specific breads, contact me directly by writing to vsapiro@gmail.com or through my Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/jonesmillhouse/. I’ll also announce what I’m baking anyway for Gilmanton’s Own through Facebook.
We welcome special orders. Email Gina at vsapiro@gmail.com
THE BREADS
(mostly 1 pound loaves)
French Bread: A lot of breads go under the name of French Bread, but this one is different from most you can get outside of a big city: It’s a recipe designed to come as close as possible to those wonderful loaves you can get in French village bakeries. A two-day process, its amazing taste comes from simple ingredients: two kinds of flour, yeast, and water. Magic. Baguettes or Boules.
Herbed French Bread or Lemon French Bread: Same as above, but rolled in a mix of lots of dried herbs or lemon zest.
Tuscan Bread: When a customer asked for a salt-free bread we searched high and low and found this wonderful bread. It takes some extra work to get a nice bread with a good rise and great crumb without the salt because salt plays a crucial role in the chemical process of turning flour and yeast into bread. But it’s worth it! We love this bread that achieves a great slightly sweet taste and very nice consistency using just flour, water, olive oil, and yeast.
Challah: Challah is a delicious eggy, slightly sweet bread (from honey as well as a little sugar) that is traditionally eaten by Jews on the Sabbath and holidays. It is usually braided (we use 6-strand braids) except for the New Year, when it is round and studded with raisins. But it is well-known in the larger community as a great bread for eating, for sandwiches and especially, as the best bread in the world to use for French Toast. We do it round like the picture or braided.
Greek Bread: This lovely bread — mostly white flour with a little whole wheat — is great for sandwiches or whatever use you want. It has a little honey, a little olive oil, a little milk in it so it’s really delicious tastes like…. bread. We base our recipe on a classic Greek country bread that is served at just about every meal in the Greek countryside with the amazing Greek dips and starters because it’s strong enough to stand up to these with a great texture.
MultiGrain Granary: We searched until we found a recipe for multigrain that tasted just as we imagined … beautiful crumb (great for sandwiches, toast, whatever), some little crunches and texture from the different grains, and a little sweetness. It reminds us a bit of the utterly wonderful “granary loaf” we always buy when we’re in England. It smells amazing.
Multigrain Granary is a 2-day process. A delicious, healthy bread with bread flour, whole wheat flour, and different grains: variously oats, wheat berries, quinoa, brown rice, polenta, — it varies a little depending on our mood. Sweetened with a little honey and molasses. Baked in rectangular sandwich loaves. Addictive.
Cinnamon Pecan Raisin Bread: The ultimate breakfast bread (or, we think, any other time): Scented throughout with a swirl of cinnamon sugar and studded with raisins and pecans. It is delicious as is, for toast, for French toast, and even sandwiches.
Wild Yeast (Sourdough) Bread: This bread has been baked for eons — long before there was commercial yeast, breads came from wild yeast. The rising agent in sourdough bread is a starter made with a lactobacillus, a type of bacteria that is our friend (not the kind that makes us sick). We made our starter a few years ago, and refresh it weekly.
The process for making this bread takes me 2-3 days. It’s really a simple bread — flour, the wild yeast starter, a little salt, and water. But its flavor develops through this longer process — unlike anything you can get commercially. The result is a glorious bread with a crunchy crust and a soft tasty inside and a marvelous crumb (lots of tiny holes). This is the bread San Francisco is famous for. And now Gilmanton. We offer it most weeks of the year.
Sure, this is a long process. But it’s what I want to eat. That’s my test for what I like to bake.
Here’s a great article explaining how sourdough works — fascinating!
And there are some nice variations:
Wild Yeast (Sourdough) New York Rye (with seeds): We start with a wild yeast base using rye flour. Its classic flavor comes partly from the sauteed chopped onions in the long ferment. Plus caraway seeds (of course). We end up with a bread that would make any pastrami happy. It’s a 3-day process, but so worth it. You can’t get better rye unless you go to New York City.
Pumpernickel Bread: This also starts with a sourdough starter, with rye flour plus ingredients to make it darker and richer.
White Bread: This is not just any white bread — it’s beautifully enriched.
FRESH FROZEN SMALL BREADS
Wild Yeast Bagels: These are (we say, modestly), the best bagels you will get anywhere around here. They are cooked in the classic way — boiled, then baked to get that characteristic texture and flavor. We use a wild yeast base, so they are very tasty. We do “Everything,” (more flavorful than most!), “Nothing” (plain), and Poppy bagels. Just warm them up for a few minutes in a medium oven and they are good-as-fresh.
Honey Corn Muffins: There are many versions of corn muffins. In the South, folks believe it’s a crime against humanity to make them sweet. In some places corn muffins demand hot peppers. The ones that show up in supermarkets and bad catering establishments are super-sweet and greasy. (Yuck)Ours are classic New England versions: course-ground cornmeal and some sweetness from local honey — but not a lot. Buttermilk and butter to give them richness. And we bake them in flat round tins (some people call them “muffin tops”) so you can eat them as they are or (as we love them) split them and toast or griddle them. Pop a poached egg on them, heat them and pour chili over them … whatever you like. They are SO good.
Hot Dog (Top Loading) and Hamburger Buns: Supermarket versions have very little real bread taste, but a lot of sugar in them. Ours are a real bread, complementing whatever you put in them. A light bread super-enriched with local eggs and a little local honey.
Multigrain English Muffins: Amazing — nothing like the supermarket version. A two-day process that has lots of great grains and a great dollop of butter baked in.
Pita: Pita is a lovely and ancient pocketed flatbread that is baked throughout the Mideast. It is used to scoop up dips, used as a wrap, and for many other purposes. Although it is increasingly common throughout the U.S., if you don’t live near a Mideastern food market in a big city you have probably never tasted it fresh baked. If that’s the case, you will be delighted and surprised by the beautiful bread flavor. Very different from the tasteless ones sold in supermarkets.
Naan: A beautiful flatbread found throughout South and West Asia. Enriched with yoghurt, butter, egg, so richer than pita. Pop it in the toaster or oven straight out of the freezer, just to defrost and warm a little.
Pizza Dough: This is what we use for our homemade pizzas. Order packs of plain and rosemary pizza dough directly trough us. Each pack sufficient for a 12-ounce pizza topped with whatever you want.
FRESH BAKED SWEET THINGS
We tend to do mostly unusual things, not super sweet. More grown-up flavors. For grown-up sweet teeth.
Bundt Cakes: Rich, delicious cakes that serve at least 16 slices. We do these flavors: Lemon or Whiskey Chocolate or Orange with Honey & Earl Grey Tea or Spicy Gingerbread, or others to order!
Sour Cream Streusal Cakes: Beautiful 8-inch coffee cakes with different flavors: Blueberry, Orange-Scented, Chocolate Chip.
Belgian Speculoos Cookies: This is a a traditional Belgian-Dutch spice cookie. Very crisp, sweet, and spicy, with tastes of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves. (They’re pretty much the same as the Biscoff cookies Delta Airlines serves … to which some folks are addicted.)
Coffee Chocolate Chip: Who doesn’t love a classic chocolate chip cookie, the one with the recipe on the bag? That’s what we have here. Just chocolate chips — no nuts or raisins. But with a good hit of espresso powder.
Crinkle Cookies: We love these neat little Crinkle Cookies. Very crisp and very flavorful, rolled in sparkling sugar. We do Lemon or Chocolate or Spicy Molasses ones. The picture shows all the flavors as we dressed the up for the holidays last year, with colored sparkling sugar.
Market Macaroons: We’ve been baking these since the Market opened, and they are a favorite among some of our customers! These a great little coconut cookies with chocolate. No gluten, dairy, or salt. Just goodness.
MAPLE GRANOLA
We like our granola kind of grown-up tasting. Made with local maple syrup OR local honey (not both) — Not very sweet. An interesting mix of nuts (e.g. almonds, cashews, pecans, pepitas, pistachios) and dried fruits (e.g. apricot, cranberries, raisins, peach). A tiny touch of spice (e.g. cinnamon, anise seed, star anise, dried citrus zest). No gluten grains (oats only; but not in a gluten-free kitchen).
AND….
Sourdough Starter: Have you ever wanted to make your own sourdough bread, but don’t want to do all the work it takes to make a first-rate starter? Ours has been going for a few years now — it makes delicious bread, bagels, etc. And did you know that the same starter will taste different if you refresh it in different locations? That’s true, because it depends on local yeasts. So our starter is New Hampshire (Gilmanton) born and bred. Contact us if you would like a 3-cup container of starter, which is more than enough to get going with your own creations!
Jones Mill House 