A love affair with brown bread

The beginning of this love affair started with Matt Durrant (our Head Baker) and I (Tom) working everyday for 3 months to perfect the recipe for Brown Bread, the second recipe ever created for Berkelo. Born in Oaks Ave, Dee Why, where we subleased the back of a bakery for 8 months prior to coming across our Brookvale bakery site.. We were allowed to use this space between 6pm and 5am.

This is where we birthed our sourdough starter and after letting go of our chef backgrounds we properly gave bread and “baking” the focus it deserved. The bread romance became real as we realised that working through the night was a serious reality, as was slicing bread for wholesale customers and delivering before 6am! 

Flour was kept in my parents garage and we brought a couple bags across daily after the morning sleep.

“Brown bread” is a real crowd pleaser and still one of our all time favourites, its' lovers enjoy its dark caramelised crust, it's balanced with honey sour tones, Khorasan nuttiness and a spongy interior.

So versatile as a vessel for many toppings, however we still find very generous amounts of butter & honey is still hard to beat. Yum.

Big family love and sourdough,

Tom and the Berkelo team.