The Borkes: Backhaus

What an opportunity! Our family had been invited to go to an original Backhaus and see the traditional way Schwabisch Holzofen Brot was made.

The original Backhaus: with the owners far right, their children and husbands back row. Our missionary friends, Bill and Gay Richards, center and us.

Look at the beautiful view from the front door of the backhaus. No, this isn't a postcard, but an actual picture. It was an absolute splendid time!

So what makes this bread so special? Its the holzofen (wood burning oven). Here was Jack's assignment...load the wood and keep it burning!

Here's where it all begins. A roaring fire for 1.5 hours to warm the brick ovens.

Then making the dough. I think there was a total of over 120 lbs of flour used to make all this bread! Look at the size of that mixer.

Now, that's some sticky dough. We filled 6 of these steel bowls with dough for the second rise.

In they go, in a special copper pot fitted with a broom handle. I'm sure it's been around for centuries! We found out that it doubles as a great soccer ball retriever for the beautiful stream from the first picture! Yes, Jack and Madeline made sure they found some time during the baking process to kick the ball around. Guess who launched it into the stream? Jack! And guess who had to go fishing? Yep, Brad. Little did we know at the time the "tool" we used for retrieval was actually used for this bread making process! Shhhh, it's our secret!

Brush washing with water to make the crust shiny.

Here's a sampling of the 40+ loaves of bread that were made that day.
Too bad you can't smell these pictures!

And yet more and more bread lined the walls of this small house.

Of course, while all this bread was baking, we were able to have a sampling of the local favorites that some right from the oven. There is something so good about a wood fired crust!
In fact, ask these two, they made sure they were busy tasting, and tasting, and tasting....

Here's the before.... (pizza, zwieblkuchen,apfelkuchen, und brot mit kuemmel und meersalz)
Oh, sorry in English...pizza, onion cake, apple cake, and bread with caraway and sea salt)