Pan Buns
Filled buns, steamed buns and bread. We bake in the morning, sell from one counter, and stop when it is gone. There is no back room with more in it.
Baked from six
The ovens go on at four. Bread is out by six, the baked buns by half past seven when we open, and there is a second bake at about eleven if the morning has been busy.
What goes first
Cheese and onion before eleven. Sourdough by eleven on a Saturday. Custard tarts mid morning. Each section of the menu says what tends to run out.
Putting one by
Email us in the morning and we will keep something back with your name on it. Two days notice for anything more than about six items.
Four things we make, and nothing else
The filled buns are baked, the steamed buns are steamed, the breads take the longest, and the sweets and drinks exist because of what was left over. Every item lists what is in it and what it costs.
Filled buns
Soft milk buns, baked every morning, filled the day they are sold.
See the list
Steamed buns
Folded and closed buns, steamed in batches through the morning.
See the list
Breads
Loaves, rolls and flatbreads, baked once early and again at eleven.
See the list
Sweets and drinks
Small sweet things, and something to drink while you wait.
See the listOne borrowed steamer and forty buns
In 2016 Ana sold steamed buns off a folding table on a Saturday morning because a neighbour said she should. Forty buns, gone by half past ten. She did it again the week after, and then the week after that.
Ten years later there is a shop, an oven, a brother who took over the bread and a daughter who runs the classes. The scale changed. The plan did not.
Two flours, one mill, and we have not changed them in years.
Four classes, small groups, everything you make goes home with you
We run classes in the room above the shop. Three benches, six or eight people, hands on the whole time, and a box to carry out at the end. Prices are between forty five and eighty five pounds.
Three benches, one oven, and flour on the floor by half past ten.
Things we have worked out, written down
Ten years of answering the same questions across the counter. No recipes for sale, no course to sign up to, just what we would tell you if there were no queue behind you.
What goes in the buns in spring
The counter changes twice a year without an announcement. This is what is coming in and what is going out.
Read the note
Baking at home with one small oven
Home ovens are smaller, draughtier and less honest about temperature than the recipe assumes. All three are workable.
Read the note
Freezing buns, and reheating them properly
A frozen bun reheated well is better than a fresh bun eaten two days late. Most people defrost when they should not.
Read the noteWe deliver to a few places nearby
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, before seven, within about three miles. Twenty four items is the smallest order that makes sense for either of us, and we take on new accounts a couple of times a year when there is genuinely room in the morning.
Out of the door by six, on the bike or in the van.