Yeast. Flour. Salt. Water.
The essential ingredients necessary for baking bread don’t exactly flood the mind with an endless array of possibilities. And yet making bread from scratch yields enormously diverse results, offers satisfying results, and presents a galaxy of challenges and obstacles. Various grains react to heat and yeast exposure differently. The tiniest, most negligible errors in ratio can spell the difference between a masterful loaf and a disappointment. Anyone who has ever attempted to bake bread will tell you it requires patience and commitment. As Chef Derik puts it, it’s a labor of love.
Chef Derik began baking bread when he was six years old, observing and assisting his grandmother in his childhood home. Ever since, he’s made a point to institute a house-made bread program in every kitchen he’s run. But until recently, he says, it’s been difficult to take his bread to the next level, to escape what he describes as the “commercial” texture and substance of bread created from mass-produced grains.
Enter Sunrise Flour Mills. While the increasing public visibility of gluten intolerance has led many to avoid wheat-based products altogether, Sunrise operates under the principle that the modern flour-milling and bread baking industries have strayed too far from the digestible origins of their product. Based out of North Branch, MN, Sunrise mills provides our kitchen with artisanal and heritage grains that, unlike most commercial flour, have not been stripped of their nutritional value. Moreover, for many gluten-sensitive eaters, heritage wheat is a viable alternative to gluten-free products. While it’s not a dietary panacea, the “return to basics” practiced at Sunrise Mills ultimately leads to a product of the highest quality. In the words of Chef Derik, our mission is to make bread that tastes better and is better for you.
Mission accomplished. Experience the flour power of superior bread at Dakota.