't Bakkes Rimburg

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An English summary with points of interest and background info, of a traditional tiny bakery in South-Limburg: 2:47 Up to three loose bundles of twigs, sjanse, are pushed into the oven. The twigs are cut from fruit trees, hedges or willows, and every type of wood adds its own flavour. The sjanse have been stored in a vented attic (sjansesjop) for 1,5 years, so the air has totally dried out the wood. The loose structure is ideal to get a blazing hot fire. When the temperature is about right, 250 °C (480 °F) the oven's stone ceiling colours white. The ceiling retains the warmth that enables the baking. 4 : 00 7:54 Pies, heritage fruit trees and hedges. The fruit ends up in the pies. 8 : 24 13:43 The last remains of the sjanse; the ashes are removed with a wet broom so the dough can be laid on a clean oven floor; when the oven is too hot, a wet mob is used to cool it down; the temperature is measured by holding an arm into the oven. If you can keep it in there for 8 seconds, no less, no more, it's the right temperature, about 230 °C (450 °F). 15:36 the oven floor is still a bit too hot, so the 500 gram (1,1 lbs) sourdough will be put on pie plates and then shoved into the oven. 16:50 after less than 20 minutes the bread is ready. Typically there are 3 batches of pies ; crumbs-covered pies ; bread. The remaining heat from the oven could be used to dry fruit. Apples were peeled, stripped of the cores and placed in slices in the oven. Pears were also dried, but they were usually placed uncut in the oven. After three days of drying, the result was "aoft" or "euve" which was stored in linen bags. The oaft was later used to fill pies, after being soaked in water, crushed and mixed with sugar and cinnamon. More info about the tiny bakery (Dutch): www.bakkesrimburg.nl/ RTV Parkstad has a more extensive report of a baking day (Dutch): kzbin.info/www/bejne/nHisiH1_qrmsd68 Some historical background info (Dutch): www.rijckheyt.nl/cultureel-erfgoed/bakkes-brood-en-vlaai